Anti-Social Media
by Shaberu-chan
Summary: Allen has never been very social. Treated as a weirdo, he's settled into a content life of blogging on his unpopular Tumblr. However, when a text post of his blows up on the site and forces him into an unwilling ship with another user, his entire life gets thrown out of whack! But maybe the stranger isn't so bad after all. Definitely not as bad as this annoying guy, Lavi. (Laven)
1. Chapter 1

**Shaberu-chan: Heyooooo~ :3 Nice to meetcha ;D I'm Shaberu-chan, and this is my first story! (Well, on this account, anyway XD) I'll keep this short, but I hope you enjoy this Laven! ^-^ Alright, someone do the disclaimer. Allen? Why don't you do the honors?  
Allen: *sighs* Shaberu-chan doesn't own DGM -_-**

* * *

Allen let out a small grunt of effort as he picked up the white plastic laundry basket and propped it against his hip. He looked down at the almost overflowing contents and sighed in relief that this was the last load. He'd been doing laundry all day, and dear _god_ , he was tired! How the bloody hell had the dirty clothes situation gotten this bad? He'd only been living in this apartment for two months!

…

Granted, without Cross around to hound him nonstop about keeping the place clean (As to "not upset the ladies," he'd say. Allen wanted to scoff. If the bastard cared so much about pleasing women with a tidy household, he shouldn't create such a huge mess in the first place! Or he should at _least_ do some of the cleaning himself. _Ha, like that'd ever happen!_ ), Allen had slacked off a little in his sanitary habits. Not that his place was absolutely _disgusting_ by any means, of course, but he definitely didn't put as much blood, sweat, and tears into it as he used to. Because of this, a thin layer of dust had already begun to accumulate on his furniture as well as the few belongings that still remained unpacked due to lack of space—Allen really needed to start investing in a new shelf at some point—and his laundry had remained undone the entire duration of his occupancy in the apartment he'd moved into after graduation. Hell, the clothes would _still_ be piling up if it weren't for the fact that he had quite literally run out of clothing!

Allen shuddered slightly at the feeling of his sweaty turtleneck against his chest. Why did this have to be his last shirt? Despite the top notch AC he had going at full blast, he was absolutely _roasting_ in the late August heat. He thanked his lucky stars that Summer would be over in less than a month. Moving into a cheap apartment right smack in the middle of June with little more than a fan to cool him had been _torture_. He was lucky he had enough graduation money leftover to afford his kickass air conditioner while he searched for a job! But even with the progressively less broiling temperatures of the approaching month of September and the almighty AC, Allen couldn't argue that having no clean long sleeved shirts less heavy than a goddamn _turtleneck_ was just godawful. Hence the reason he was now staggering toward the three steps at the end of the hall with a laundry basket jam packed with dark clothes propped more or less comfortably against his hip.

Once Allen reached the small set off descending steps, he put the majority of his weight against the wall and felt around with his foot for the first wooden stair. He needed to be extra careful going down these. He couldn't even imagine what was going through the contractor's head when he decided to place a tiny staircase to get from the side of the apartment containing his living room, kitchen, and bedroom to the hallway containing the bathroom, closet, and laundry room. Not only was it _completely_ unnecessary to have the smaller half of the place three feet lower than the rest, but the damn stairs were also freaking _dangerous!_ They were hard to spot, first off, because the pattern of the wood basically blended the upper and lower floor levels together to the naked eye unless you paid close enough attention to notice the small differences in the sizing of the tiles from level to level. This made the stairs _frighteningly_ easy to miss, so easy that Allen must have tripped down them at least a hundred times before it finally became etched in his brain to pay closer attention to his footing around the area. Secondly, even when he _did_ make sure to watch his step, the fact that said stairs were made of wood made them rather slippery, especially to people like Allen who preferred to keep socks on whenever temperature made bearable. The eighteen-year-old had basically grown accustomed to having an array of brown and purple dotting his shins and forearms at this point from how much he slipped both up and down the steps. Combining this with the fact that he was currently carrying a large basket of clothing that not only gave him weight-related lifting troubles but also obscured his line of vision looking down at the steps, Allen was all but holding his breath in trying to make his way down without disaster.

At last Allen's foot brushed against the top of the first step, and he gingerly placed his weight on it one foot after the other until he was standing upright. He was already just about breaking a sweat in concentration. _Two more to go_ , he thought as he readjusted his and the basket's weight against the wall and repeated his touch-and-feel test on the next step down. By the time he got there, he _was_ sweating either from effort or heat or a combination of both. His arms ached from the weight of his clothing, and his hip definitely had a mark of imprint on it by now. His breath was coming out in small pants at this point. "Come on, Allen, just one more..." he whispered to himself as he readjusted again and prepared to take the last step, this one without touching and feeling as he was now stepping onto the flat ground rather than a narrow step.

What a mistake that was.

Allen yelped in alarm as he came crashing down hard onto the wooden floor, his laundry basket promptly going flying and spilling its crumpled contents everywhere. The boy groaned as he sat up, brushing a lock or two of semi-long white hair from his eyes. What the hell just happened? _Did I slip...?_ , he wondered, slowly looking back at the staircase from which he'd just tripped.

" _TIMCANPY!_ " Allen shouted at the top of his lungs in anger as he looked back at the golden-coated cat he'd just tripped over. Said feline regarded the enraged male disinterestedly, staring up at him without the slightest semblance of guilt. Allen ignored the small aches in his limbs as he stood up and picked the cat up from under his armpits as gently as he could despite his anger. "Tim, what have I told you about laying _right_ at the bottom of the stairs? I can't see you when you do that!" Allen scolded, already beginning to simmer down. Timcanpy just blinked at him boredly and opened his jaws in a big, tired yawn. Allen chuckled slightly, bringing the cat in to hold him against his chest. "Oh, I can't stay mad at you, Tim," he said, giving his golden fur a few pets before holding him out again. "Although, I can't say I'm pleased that I'm going to have to pick up _all_ of my clothes _again_." Timcanpy just blinked again without care for the teenage boy's irritated tone, and Allen set him back down on the ground. "Go find somewhere else to sleep," the whitette ordered, shooing the cat away from the stairs before turning to face the hot _mess_ that was the dark clothing that had practically exploded down the hall. He sighed _. Great._

After five or so minutes of picking up garments from miscellaneous places (How exactly _had_ his dark gray button up managed to make its way all the way up to hang from the corner of the bathroom door frame? The doors in this apartment were rather tall. Well, either that, or Allen was rather _small_... But he'd never admit that. It was definitely the doorways. _Yeah_.), Allen wasted no time making his way to the last door on the left to switch out his laundry, replacing the crumbled darks in his basket with a load of clean, dry lights fresh from the drier. Once he finished adjusting the settings on the washer and drier, the boy set the much lighter ( _Thank god_ ) basket against his hips and hurried back down the hall and up the stairs (This time taking care to step _over_ Timcanpy, who, much to Allen's displeasure, was right back to snoring at the bottom of the steps) before heading to his room. He set the basket down with a huff and leaned back against the wall with his head tilted as far back as it would go. That entire ordeal had been _ridiculously_ exhausting.

Allen was panting heavily at this point and pulled back the collar of his turtleneck in an attempt to relieve some of the baking heat trapped under the thick cloth. _Christ_ , it was hot! Between the heat of the garment and the stress of falling flat on his face, the boy was sweating profusely. _I should probably change clothes..._ he thought to himself absentmindedly before the heat that was slowly roasting him alive brought the idea to full seriousness. Allen pushed himself off the wall and kneeled down next to the basket of unfolded lights before beginning to dig through them for a less heavy shirt. At last, he pulled a light blue Jaws T-shirt he'd gotten cheap at Walmart from the basket. His eyes rolled to look up at the white ceiling in thought for a moment. Was he going to be seeing anyone today? After determining that he wasn't expecting any visitors and that he had enough food at home that he wouldn't be needing to leave the house again that day, he came to the conclusion that it should be fine and pulled the bulky turtleneck up over his head. He sighed in relief at the feeling of the lighter, cleaner cloth of the Jaws shirt against his skin before chucking the sweaty turtleneck to some random spot on the floor where it wouldn't be seen nor thought about until Allen did his laundry again in another couple months.

Now that the discomfort of the godforsaken turtleneck was gone, Allen nudged his laundry basket into the corner with his foot, deciding to deal with putting his clothes away later, and flopped down onto the bed with a sigh of relief. This was the first time in awhile he'd worn short sleeves, and it felt _really_ nice. He couldn't do this very often, so it was quite the treat to him. His gray eyes traveled to look down at his uncovered left arm, which was essentially a gathering of red mounds of uneven flesh that was quite nauseating to look at to anyone who hadn't become immune from staring at it for ten years of their life. He moved and stretched the limb, enjoying the feeling of the AC-cooled air against the red flesh. Due to his need to keep the deformity hidden from the world (God _knows_ it wouldn't be pretty if the public had _this_ to add to the list of oddities that made up its opinion of him), Allen didn't get to let it air out like this often. He had to admit, it felt really good to wear a T-short once and awhile, which was basically the only reason he hadn't already thrown out the few tees he had.

Allen let the unique arm fall back to his side and glanced at the time on his phone. 4:37PM. So he'd been at laundry for almost five hours, huh ? That was the longest he'd spent on a chore since he _moved_ here. Between enrolling for his morning community college classes, _going_ to said classes 5 days a week, working his part-time job at a local restaurant called "The Pretzel Cafe," and taking care of the basic necessities such as grocery shopping and feeding his cat, Allen hardly had time for tedious housework. The small things like the dishes, of course, he'd kept up with, but he only got one completely free day a week, and unless circumstance made absolutely necessary, he didn't want to waste it on chores like he was today. This downtime was precious to him. It was not something he'd spend on boring stuff. Instead, he spent the majority of it blogging.

Allen, as much as he hated to say considering how much he wished his free time went to something more productive (like eating), was quite the blogger. Somewhere around his Junior year of high school, one of his old friends had introduced him to the social media site Tumblr, and needless to say, _that was a mistake_. The damn website, while starting as nothing more than a hobby, now basically consumed his entire life. If not for his tolerance against embarrassment on account of being the weirdo of his peer group his entire life (Stark white hair and a weird scar on your face tends to attract a lot of attention, most of which is less than friendly), this obsession would have been the shame of his existence. However, as it stood, Allen was in a new place, had left behind his few high school friends at home, and as he wasn't the most appealing individual to the public eye, he didn't have much else to do but blog.

Unlike Allen himself, said blog wasn't exactly the most eye catching of things. With a plain black and white background and a profile picture of a silver mask on a white cape (As one may imagine, Allen disliked taking pictures of himself), the blog was hard to give a specific description to besides the word "neat." The teen reblogged a variety of things, ranging from photographs he found pleasant to the eye to moderately humorous text posts as well as a few pictures he'd taken himself, but while said posts made for a pleasant, orderly layout, they did little to attract attention to the blog. Of course, Allen didn't mind this too much. After all, having been nothing but singled out in real life for the majority of his public schooling, being regarded as "normal" was quite a pleasant change. However, even Allen wouldn't have minded a bit of online popularity, and well, to put it bluntly, he was less than satisfied with only 23 followers after two years of blogging. Nevertheless, he still funneled a great deal of time and effort into his account, xXcrown-clownXx, and he held a great deal of pride in the, though unpopular, pleasant results.

Suddenly, a knock on the front door pulled Allen from his thoughts. He sat up in alarm, his heart beginning the pound. Who was that? Allen had already checked his mental schedule, and knew for a fact that he wasn't expecting any company today. What could it... He gulped. _Could that be...?_ he began to wonder in slight panic before shaking his head and forcing himself to calm down. "No, it isn't," he said to himself out loud before standing up. He seriously needed to break this habit of freaking out whenever there was an unexpected guest. He was weird enough as it is without some freaky panic disorder that came to life every time someone knocked on the _stupid door_. It wasn't _them_. It'd been years since they'd paid him a visit, and even if they _were_ by some unlikely chance looking for him again, he'd moved and left no trace of his whereabouts (For more than one reason, one of those being escaping the paper trail of debt given to him by his more or less psychotic guardian of ten years, Marian Cross). There was no way they could find him even if they wanted to. It was over.

However, confirming that _they_ weren't the ones pounding on Allen's door didn't answer the question of who _was_ , so Allen called, "Coming!" in a loud voice and quickly threw on a hoodie and a pair of white gloves from atop his dresser before half-jogging to the front door. He stood on his toes to peer through the peep hole in the door to find a man in a brown UPS uniform waiting rather impatiently on the other side. A sigh of relief escaped Allen's lips as the last thought of _them_ returning slipped his mind, and he opened the door.

"Can I help you?" Allen asked the UPS guy politely with a falsely cheerful smile. He liked to keep up a rather pleasant mask for the outside world. Made things easier, you know? However, said man didn't return the gesture but rather gave Allen a suspicious glance over, staring specifically at the head of snowy white hair and the matching gloves. The object of this scrutinizing gaze bit back his irritation at being so shamelessly ogled at and continued smiling.

"You Allen Walker?" the man finally said when he finished his visual critique of Allen's appearance. The whitette nodded, his facial expression still locked in it's pleasant position, and the UPS guy handed him a clipboard with a document attached to it. "Sign here."

"What's this?" Allen asked, finally allowing his smile to change into a look of curiosity.

The man rolled his eyes. "I don't know, I just deliver the stuff! You want it or not?" Forcing himself not to outwardly express his annoyance at the man's rudeness towards him, Allen picked up the pen lodged in the clip of the clipboard and signed the paper quickly before handing it back with as little malice as he could muster. The UPS guy gave Allen a cardboard box before turning and storming off without even saying goodbye.

"Who shoved an entire pool cue up _his_ ass?" Allen muttered under his breath as soon as the man was out of sight before closing the door and turning his attention to the package in hand. "I wonder what this is?" he pondered to himself only to be met with a loud _Mrow_ in reply. The boy glanced over to see Timcanpy lying on the small couch. The golden-furred cat was staring at Allen expectantly, and he chuckled. "I'm opening it, Tim, I'm opening it!"

After removing the sweatshirt and gloves and throwing them onto the couch, Allen grabbed a steak knife from the kitchen (He hadn't unpacked his scissors yet, and he couldn't even _begin_ to imagine which box they might be in) and cut open the tape for putting it back where it came from. Hey, he wasn't gonna wash that thing over this! _Way_ too much effort. The boy then returned to living room, where Timcanpy still waited staring up at Allen with obvious curiosity, and sat down next to the feline. He pulled open the box to find an object wrapped thickly in bubblewrap and wasted no time tearing the cushiony shell away to reveal a black glass vase with an intricate silver rose cross decal on it. _Oh, I remember now!,_ Allen thought, smiling down at the thing. He'd ordered the vase for, like, $5 off eBay a few weeks back. He'd thought it'd be a nice (and cheap) decoration for his side table, and he guessed he must have just forgotten he'd ordered it. The teen shoved the bubblewrap back into the box and gently tossed it across the room (Wow, he was procrastinating _a lot_ today...) before reaching over Timcanpy to place the vase on the side table. He smiled at how pleasant it looked there for a moment before giving Tim a pointed look. "Do _not_ break it." The cat looked about as offended as a feline could look and hopped off the couch before stalking out of the living room indignantly. Allen once again turned his attention to the vase and hummed. _This would make a good picture for my blog..._ he thought, biting the inside of his cheek absentmindedly. He pulled his phone out from his back pocket and took a quick picture of the vase on the side table before standing up and walking back to his bedroom.

After flopping down on his bed once more, Allen opened up a photo-editing app he'd grown to particularly like and applied a few filters to the photo of his vase until he deemed it to be aesthetically pleasing enough and then opened up his mobile Tumblr app to make a new post. _"New vase. Hope the cat doesn't break it XD"_ he captioned before adding a couple of hashtags and posting the thing. Allen locked his phone and set it down on the bed. _I guess I'll finish my laundry while I wait_ , he thought to himself before standing back up and walking toward his abandoned laundry basket, leaving the phone behind on the bed. He'd check on it later.

Allen spent an hour or so finishing up his laundry. After folding the (now wrinkled) clean clothes, he _carefully_ returned to the laundry room to retrieve the next dry basket of clothing and put the last load in the drier, already deciding that he'd deal with it tomorrow. He returned to his room to fold and put away the far less wrinkled dry clothing and made a quick visit to the kitchen for a snack of a Little Debbie's cupcake (Thank god for cheap, easy sweets he didn't have to cook!) before at last returning to his bed to eagerly check on how his Tumblr post did.

Allen's heart dropped in disappointment. An entire hour, and he'd only gotten _two likes_.

A long sigh escaped his lips, and he stared up at the ceiling. He really _did_ put a lot of effort into his blog. Why was it that he was _still_ so unpopular? What was it that his blog was missing, that thing that would _really_ make his two years of hard work and more or less healthy obsession pay off? _Other blogs do just fine..._ he thought a little bitterly, now mindlessly scrolling through his dash. 6,397 notes on one post. 592 on another. Even a whopping 1,037,435 on yet another! What did these have that he didn't? They didn't post anything much different than he did. What did they have that was so special?

Grudgingly, he reblogged the post with 6,397 notes. It was a picture of a cute strawberry shortcake. Even when jealous, he really liked strawberry shortcake.

Suddenly, Allen's notifications lit up. He clicked on them to find he had a direct message from fr13nd-0r-f0u.

 _fr13nd-0r-f0u: heyyy clownie ;)_

Allen chuckled at the silly nickname his friend had given him. fr13nd-0r-f0u was an Internet friend of his he'd made a few months back. She was one of his few followers, and they mostly connected through a mutual love of unique weaponry and Twenty One Pilots. When Tumblr came out with its direct messaging system, they really hit it off.

 _xXcrown-clownXx: Hi f0u c:_

 _fr13nd-0r-f0u: I like ur vase. Very emo. Suits you ;P_

 _xXcrown-clownXx: Hahaha you're a riot -_-_

 _fr13nd-0r-f0u: aww don't be like that, shortstack! Where's the clownie I know? :'c /3_

 _xXcrown-clownXx: I'M NOT THAT SHORT!_

 _fr13nd-0r-f0u: there he is ;)_

 _xXcrown-clownXx: Done picking on me yet?_

 _fr13nd-0r-f0u: almost. u do anything fun today?_

 _xXcrown-clownXx: If you count laundry as fun..._

 _fr13nd-0r-f0u: I most certainly do NOT._

 _xXcrown-clownXx: Well that about sums it up. Oh, and I got tripped by Tim down the stairs._

 _fr13nd-0r-f0u: AGAIN?!_

 _xXcrown-clownXx: That's Tim for you XD_

 _fr13nd-0r-f0u: I swear that cat is gonna make u hit ur head on something someday. Then ull be even SHORTER! :0_

 _xXcrown-clownXx: Oh yes. So funny. Many laughs -_-_

 _fr13nd-0r-f0u: ur smiling and u know it_

She had him there.

 _xXcrown-clownXx: Is that all? XD_

 _fr13nd-0r-f0u: yea, pretty much. I just came 2 make sure ur not being all emo about the whole 2 notes on ur vase thing._

 _xXcrown-clownXx: How did you know? o_0_

 _fr13nd-0r-f0u: magic~ *wink*_

 _xXcrown-clownXx: Of course. I shouldn't even be surprised XP_

 _fr13nd-0r-f0u: damn str8~ ;) well I gtg. Baka-Bak's riding my ass about using his work computer 4 tumblr again *rolls eyes* see ya, clownie~! ;P_

 _xXcrown-clownXx: Bye, f0u XD_

Allen chuckled at the conversation, in a considerably better mood now. f0u always knew how to cheer him up.

Without much else to do, Allen spent the next hour at least scrolling down his dash and reblogging a post here and there. He wasn't paying much attention to any of it—until he came across a certain post, that is. It wasn't anything special, just a funny little comic about a couple playing MarioKart for the Wii. The girl beat the guy, but even though he was frustrated from losing, he kissed her cheek and she started blushing like mad. Allen smiled at it. He thought it was cute.

Allen pulled up a blank text post and started typing.

Now, he never was really one for romance and all of that. After all, he was gay. He would've been lucky enough to find a _girlfriend_ with how unappealing his odd appearance was, but a boyfriend? It was just about impossible, so Allen had never really had high hopes in terms of romance. Because of this, he really had no idea what fueled the text post. The cute comic just inspired him, he guessed. Whatever it was he ended up posting it.

 _"I just want someone who will play Mariokart with me and kiss my cheek even when I kick their butt."_

He stared at the text he'd just posted wondering if he should delete it before shaking his head and locking his phone. Eh, whatever. _It's not like I have a lot of followers anyway_ , he thought. _Worst case scenario, f0u will poke fun at me for it._ Allen shook his head again and got up to eat dinner. He didn't do much else that night, but by the time he went to bed, he'd already forgotten about the silly text post.

 _He was in for one hell of a surprise the next morning._

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 **Shaberu-chan: Yayyyyy first chapter completed! :3 Sorry to all you Lavi fangirls who were expecting to see Lavi in this chapter! ^-^;;; This is mostly just exposition. Lavi shows up in the next one though (Chapter 2 is currently about 1/3-1/2 done, I'd say?). Anyway, stay tuned~ ;D Anything to say, Allen?  
Allen: *eating a donut* Nah :T You've made me pretty lazy in this story, so I don't really feel like commenting. Though I can't say I'm necessarily pleased about getting tripped by a cat -_- *glaaare*  
Shaberu-chan: *sweat drop* Eheh... 0v0;;; Well, anyway, while I'm here, I should probably give some credits. This story is inspired by the stories "Blogging" by Forever the Uke and "First Impressions" by Elvira Rayne. Go check them out! :3 In fact, I make references to Vira-chan throughout the thing XD For example, Fou's username "fr13nd-0r-f0u"? Yep, that's a reference to her (that you guys don't understand yet).  
Elvira Rayne: *covers my mouth* SHUSH DON'T TELL THEM THAT! 0^0  
Shaberu-chan: *licks her hand*  
Elvira Rayne: *jumps back* EUGH YUCK *sulks in the corner* Nasty... e^e  
Shaberu-chan: *chuckles* Anyway, please R&R and let me know what you think! :3 'Til next time! ^-^**


	2. Chapter 2

**Shaberu-chan: Fucking HELLLLL, this chapter is LOOOOONG o.e I intend for the majority of my chapters to be about 4k-5k words long, but this one is friggin _8_** _ **k!**_ **I seriously hope you guys enjoy it, it took me over 9 hours to write XD  
Allen: Child, whatchu been doin with your life? e.e  
Shaberu-chan: Well, I'm on Winter Break until January 5** **th** **, so I've basically been nocturnal for the past week. Hell, it's 5:30AM on January 2** **nd** **rn (Tho this won't be posted for a few days bc I gotta edit it and stuff bc my sleepy writing is just awful). And what better to do with my lack of daylight than attempt to write a story? ;D  
Allen: I can think of several things...  
Shaberu-chan: Oh, shut it and do the Disclaimer -3-  
Allen: *sighs* Shaberu-chan doesn't own DGM.**

* * *

 _HACK! COUGH! CHOKE!_

The sounds being emitted from the depths of Allen's lungs sounded grossly inhuman, and his movements matched that same description. Luckily, nobody was around to see the demon-like contortions of Allen's body as he thrashed in panic. Should some unfortunate soul have witnessed the disturbing display, they probably would've called an exorcist, and god _knows_ Allen didn't have it in him to have yet _another_ priest screeching prayers at him (Having a Satanic symbol carved into your face tended to attract the attention of a lot of Church-associated people. Most were harmless, though one did attempt to forcibly wash his hair with Holy Water once. _That_ was a weird day.). Allen struggled fiercely, clawing at the air with all his might and shrieking in a guttural voice worthy of Satan himself as he tried so hard to fight the unearthly force that pinned him to his bed so firmly and was rather quickly smothering him to death.

To sum it up, Timcanpy was lying on his face again.

At last, Allen pushed the large cat to the side and took a deep inhale of sweet oxygen, panting with effort. He whirled around to glare at the source of his near-suffocation accusingly. "Tim! How many times do I have to tell you not to sleep on my face?!" The cat meowed in response, and Allen seemed to immediately forget the fact that he'd just _almost died_ and chuckled before giving Tim some scratches behind his ears. "I can't stay mad at you," he giggled before adding in a low whisper, "Though one of these days you're gonna smother me to death." He looked at the cat again. "Who's going to feed you then, huh?" Timcanpy didn't dignify that with a response and strolled out of the room leisurely.

After picking the last of the fluffy golden fur off his face, Allen stood up and stretched. It was Sunday, so he had work that evening. _I should make some coffee..._ he thought to himself with a loud yawn before sluggishly dragging his feet to the kitchen. Not much thought went through his head as he brewed himself some plain unflavored coffee. Normally, he'd make himself something a bit sweeter, but he'd drunk the last of his delicious mocha two days prior, so all he had left was the miscellaneous variety box he'd gotten free with his coffee machine, which after two months of being picked at, held nothing but questionable flavors and plain 'ole original. Deciding he wasn't in the mood for "Maple Bacon" coffee (How was that even a coffee flavor?), he'd decided on plain. When the coffee was finished, he poured it into a tall cup (Even with his harsh awakening, Allen was still exhausted) and treaded to the living room to sit down on the couch. His lip curled with distaste as he sipped the bitter beverage. Although he could stomach just about anything, Allen really _did_ prefer sweets above all else. Bitter things like this weren't very high on his list of favorites. He looked down at the unappealing beverage with a grimace. He really should have put some creamer or sweetener in this. However, the unpleasant taste paired with the caffeine _did_ work wonders to sharpen Allen's consciousness, and by the time he'd sipped the last lingering drops, he was wide awake.

The whitette dropped the mug off in the nearly empty sink to wash later and made his way back to his bedroom to get ready for the day. He was working from 5PM to close that night, and judging by the bright light filtering through his nearly shut blinds, it was at _least_ early afternoon. Allen pulled the Jaws T-shirt he'd ended up sleeping in over his head and crinkled his nose in disgust at the sharp smell of body odor it released. After working so hard in the heat with that blasted turtleneck all day the day prior, he'd accumulated quite a large amount of sweat, all of which made for a rather unpleasant scent. _I should really take a shower before I go to work..._ Allen thought to himself. Did he have enough time to? What time was it? Allen pulled his phone out from his pocket and hit the button on the side.

The whittete suddenly froze like a statue. Every thought of checking the clock disappeared in an instant.

"Whoa," Allen murmured in pure shock upon seeing the full screen of Tumblr notifications he'd just brought to life. He was used to having maybe one or two of the things, but there were so many, he had to scroll down! Allen had _never_ gotten so many notifications, _especially_ not this quickly! What had happened overnight? He hadn't reblog anything particularly interesting the previous day. Could it be the picture of his vase? _Did someone famous reblog it...?_ he wondered before at last swiping to the right to type in his password. He pulled open the Tumblr app and just about spit up his coffee. _2,567 notifications?!_ Bloody _hell!_ He knew his vase was cool and all, but he was _certainly_ not expecting _this_! Was it really possible for a household object to gain so much praise? Though, upon second thought, he supposed he _had_ seen everyday pictures become famous before. After all, just _yesterday_ he'd reblogged that picture of the strawberry shortcake with over 6,000 notes. If a picture of food could become that popular, he supposed it wasn't entirely implausible for a picture of a vase to...

Allen then noticed he had a notification on his direct messages. He clicked.

 _fr13nd-0r-f0u: WHOA DUDE, UR FUCKIN LIT! :0_

He typed a reply with fingers still stiff with shock.

 _xXcrown-clownXx: I know, what the hell happened? I just woke up to over 2k notifications 0_0_

The response was quick.

 _fr13nd-0r-f0u: christ, kid, that damn text post of urs is practically TUMBLR FAMOUS!_

Allen began typing a reply before he paused.

Wait...

Text post?

Allen opened up his notifications again and clicked on the first one. Surely enough, rather than the picture of his vase, he was instead directed to the text post he'd forgotten he'd made the previous day. This made his eyebrows furrow in confusion. But it was just a dumb shitpost... Why would it get—Holy shit—2,343 notes? This made no sense!

Then he noticed the reblogs.

Right below the original post—" _I just want someone who will play Mariokart with me and kiss my cheek even when I kick their butt,"_ it read. _Christ, how sappy..._ Had he _really_ written this?—was another caption. He read it out loud to himself.

 _"I just want someone who I will want to kiss on the cheek even after they kick my butt in Mariokart XD"_

… Huh?

Who had said _that_? Allen read the username. "hammer-time"? That was no one he knew. He clicked on the username and was directed to what appeared to be a humor blog, but even after a few minutes of scrolling, nothing about it seemed familiar to him. Yeah, he definitely hadn't seen this before... And he didn't recall anyone by that name ever following him. The person must have found the text post through tags, or maybe through someone else's reblog... But this was all beside the point. _Why_ did that reblog matter?! Allen clicked the back arrow to view the post again, completely dumbfounded as he stared at it intently. It was just a _dumb_ reblog on a _dumber_ shit post. What about this had sent the note number skyrocketing?

Then Allen noticed another after it.

 _"like if you think the first two should date"_

 _…_

 _WHAT?!_

He didn't recognize this username either. "aestheticbootstrash"? _What an odd username..._ Well, it wasn't like he was one to judge with xXcrown-clownXx, but that was, once again, that was beside the point. To make 100% certain his hunch about this was correct, he pulled up the notes on the post. Just as he suspected, the mass majority of them were likes. _Holy crap..._ Of all things that could happen to him on a youth-populated website with millions of other users, the mass majority of which had completely ignored him for two entire years until this point, of all things that could gain the attention of thousands of likely teenage bloggers, of all things he could experience on this soul-suckingly addictive website from Hell...

He'd been Tumblr shipped.

"I can't believe this is happening," he whispered to himself, locking his phone again. He'd become Tumblr famous overnight. And over a stupid _text post_ , of all things! He was almost angry. He put so much work into all these aesthetically pleasing photographs and reblogged all of this quality content for two years, and the thing that became famous was a damn _shit post?!_ He'd imagined himself gaining online popularity in a variety of ways, but Christ, this was _not_ one of them! Being shipped with someone he didn't even know to become Tumblr famous? Not something that'd gone through his mind even once. However, he unlocked his phone again. Speaking of becoming tumblr famous, he wondered if he'd gained any followers because of this...

He almost choked again. 246 followers.

"How the _hell_?!" he just about shouted out loud before locking his phone once more and tossing it onto the bed, his face flushed with the surge of overwhelming feelings he was currently feeling—most of which ranged from shock to confusion to frustration—and taking a deep breath. Okay, he seriously needed to calm down. This was too startling for him, the boy who'd been eagerly tracking each and every like for two years only to suddenly be bombarded with more than 2,000. Clearly, he needed to step away from this for awhile and pull himself together. It's not this was going to drastically change his entire life, right? Right! He needed to focus. It was time for a reality check! He was still Allen Walker, he was still an eighteen-year-old living alone in an apartment with his cat, and he still had work in—he quickly checked his phone just once more for the time—an hour and 28 minutes?! Panic began to well up in his chest. He had to get ready!

Leaving his phone on the bed, Allen grabbed his (now freshly washed) work clothes from the drier and took a quick shower, attempting to lose his dizzying (and headache-inducing) thoughts of social media in the cold water as he hurriedly scrubbed the sweat and grime from his pale skin. After freshening up and getting dressed in the black pants and long-sleeved cardinal red "Pretzel Cafe" shirt that were his designated work uniform (Damn, he really should have folded these. They were _hella_ wrinkled.), he ate a quick lunch, threw on his shoes, grabbed his work gloves and waiter's apron off the front table, and left the apartment with 26 minutes to spare. Work was about fifteen minutes away, and it was only good etiquette to show up 10-15 minutes before your shift. Though, at the rate he was going, he'd still be cutting it close. His pulse remained fast.

Allen's frenzied heart rate only finally eased up as he pulled into the first _Employees Only_ parking space he saw and locked up the car. _I made it on time..._ he thought with a sigh of relief and began walking toward the Employee Entrance. It was about halfway through his journey across the parking lot that his heart stalled again as he patted his pocket for his phone to check the time. He realized with a few muttered curses under his breath that he'd left his phone at home on the bed in his rush. "Damn it," he hissed in a whispered voice, smacking himself on the forehead with the palm of his gloved hand. How could he be so dumb? First he was running late—Well, late for _him—_ and now he'd forgotten his phone? He was seriously off his game today. _Oh well, I guess I don't really need it..._ he thought to himself with a sigh of grudging acceptance as he walked into the back door of the restaurant. He'd be working for the next six hours anyway.

Allen forced himself to ditch his stressed thoughts about his phone in the doorway and quickly replaced his tense frown with a cheerful smile as he was greeted with several counts of, "Hey, Allen!" from his coworkers in the back. He waved with a friendly grin to two of the cooks, Toma, who waved back, and Elda, who just smiled calmly in greeting. Allen began to walk past the grills to the front of the kitchen when he was stopped by a hand on his shoulder. The boy chuckled as he was pulled into a tight embrace. He'd known already he wasn't getting past the cooks without a hug from this guy.

Allen looked up with a smile at the tan man currently squeezing him. "Hi, Jeryy," he greeted with a chuckle has the pink-haired head cook released him and began to gush.

"Hi, cutie! How's everything going?" Jeryy all but squealed in delight to see him, already striking a flamboyant pose. He was charismatic as always, Allen observed merrily.

"Same as always, I suppose," Allen replied with a chuckle, not even considering explaining the whole text post shipping shock of that morning. The whitette considered his coworkers his friends as they always treated him as such (the majority of them, anyway), but they weren't necessarily people he'd discuss his problems with. Just like he had with the rude UPS guy from hell yesterday, Allen kept up a pleasant outward display with the people he worked with. It wasn't that he disliked them or anything, but, well, he didn't trust easily. Most people in his social life shut him out because of his appearance, so it was rare that he found himself all that close to anyone. Because of this, Allen seldom found himself trying _make friends_ with anyone who didn't approach him first, let alone just outwardly expressing himself around them. And seeing as work was the _only_ place he saw his coworkers, he didn't really consider them super close. And if they weren't close, they didn't see past his polite exterior. Call him antisocial, but it was simple logic, really.

"Glad to hear it! Well, I better let you get to work so you don't get in trouble. Love you, hon!" Jeryy chirped, pulling Allen into one last bone-crushing hug before releasing him to his duties.

"Love you, too, Jeryy," Allen replied with a friendly wave as he headed toward the front. He maneuvered his shoulders and arms in a stretching fashion as he walked. Jeez, Jeryy was gonna snap him in half with his death hugs one of these days. The guy sure knew how to channel his affection into strength!

"Oh, there you are, Allen," greeted one of the other two severs working that night, a calm Asian man who offered a collected smile.

"Hey, Shifu," Allen replied, returning the facial gesture. "Where's Rikei?"

"He's with a table right now. Or on the floor, covered in various liquids. Everyone in the party requested a water in addition to their drink, so he was balancing eight full glasses on his tray when he walked out of here. May we wish him luck."

"Geez, he has a table _already?_ " Allen asked in disbelief. "His shift hasn't even technically started!"

"Yeah," Shifu replied, scratching the back of his neck. "They walked in _right_ as he got here, and you know Link doesn't like to waste a second of time on the clock waiting around. I was lucky I didn't get here for another two minutes, or that table would've been mine!"

"So Link's in one of _those_ moods today, huh?" Allen sighed. Howard Link was the general manager of this location of The Pretzel Cafe. He was a neat and punctual man, always taking care to make sure things around the restaurant were running in an orderly and efficient manner. And when Allen said "efficient," he meant _efficient_. The blond man was pretty strict about making sure everyone was hard at work as long as they were on the clock. He didn't tolerate standing around for long periods of time, even when the place was slow. After all, there was still cleaning and side work to do, right? Link was _especially_ snappy on busy days, which as Allen observed, were Fridays (You know, date night and all) and Sundays (Large amounts of hungry people leaving their various churches at once made for quite the rush), and could get rather demanding when he was in a pressured mood. Considering it was Sunday, Allen figured that'd be the case today, hence his sighing. Link wasn't a bad guy, though. Sure, he was a bit nitpicky, but that was only because he cared about the good of the cafe. The blond man was pretty cool in all actuality. He let Allen and his coworkers eat for free in the back if they were ever hungry and the place wasn't absolutely slammed, and there'd been more than one occasion he'd noticed that Allen seemed to be a little off (usually due to fatigue) and let him go home early. In fact, if you caught him on a particularly slow day and finished all the cleaning, Link made for quite the conversationalist, and Allen honestly considered him the closest friend of all of his coworkers.

"Yeah. Speaking of Link, though, you better go clock in before he notices you're back here talking to me. Talk to you later, Allen!" Shifu said before walking off with an armful of dishes to wash. Allen heeded his advice and half-jogged over to the computer to clock in. Link was behind the counter the computer was sitting on, his golden hair braided as always. Judging by the occasional flyaway here and there, the post-church rush had been particularly brutal that day. Noticing Link was on the phone, Allen offered a silent wave in greeting to the man, who just nodded at him in acknowledgment and returned to his business, scribbling furiously on a notepad with his eyebrows furrowed around the two vertical red dots adorning his forehead in stress. Allen clicked a few buttons on the computer to clock in before returning to the kitchen to do some side work while he waited for a table.

It didn't take long. Soon enough, the hostess working that day, a softspoken girl with mousy brown hair in twin braids and glasses named Lou Fa, poked her head in and squeaked to Allen that he had a table. Allen smiled at her politely, ignoring the bright red blush on her face (She was always like that around him for some reason), and said, "Okay. Thanks for letting me know!" before putting down the silverware he was polishing and taking his notepad and pen out from the pocket of his apron. _And so it begins..._

Allen passed Rikei on his way out of the kitchen and smiled in greeting, earning a playful tongue stuck out at him in response. The whitette kept that smile plastered on his face like a mask as he approached a couple reading their menus and chirped with his usual waiter's charm, "Hello! Welcome to The Pretzel Cafe! What can I get you two started with this evening?"

The majority of the evening passed in a blur of falsely cheerful greetings and busy hustling in and out of the kitchen with various soft drinks followed by meals of various basic cafe dinners such as burgers and chicken tenders, most of which were served with a side of French fries or pretzels (This _was_ The _Pretzel_ Cafe, after all. It was pretty much their signature.), as well as the occasional desert of vanilla ice cream or pretzels with chocolate sauce. Allen didn't really remember a whole lot of his customers' faces, especially as business picked up more and more. The restaurant wasn't _huge_ , but that didn't mean it didn't get busy. By the time it hit 8:00, the place was almost completely full! Allen was seriously breaking a sweat in his long sleeves as he zipped in and out of the kitchen speedily, since he didn't ever wear the company T-shirt for obvious reasons. He'd _long_ abandoned the idea of getting his side work done in between tables. The poor waiter barely even had time to keep up with the tables coming in one after the other!

He clipped yet another order of soft pretzels and cheese to the metal bar in front of the cooks. They looked even more exhausted than he was, rushing from station to station with hurried yet focused expertise. He felt pretty bad for them, but he knew that, with all these tables, their tip share at the end of the day would make all of their hard work worth it. Allen speed walked over to the drink machine, refilling a glass he'd brought from Table 7 with Pepsi ( _Coke is better_ , he thought), when suddenly he heard the squeaked, yet winded voice of Lou Fa alert him that he had yet _another_ table. He wanted to scream in frustration. _HOW is it so busy?!_ All these tables were driving him crazy! However, he hid is annoyance and gave the clearly stressed hostess the same polite reply as always (It wasn't _her_ fault so many people were coming in, after all) before quickly bringing the refilled Coke to the lady at Table 7 and hurrying over to the party that just walked in over at Table 19, pad and pen in hand.

"Hello," Allen greeted, panting slightly. "What can I start you guys with to drink today?"

The people sitting there looked up at Allen in slight surprise as if they hadn't noticed him arrive (He supposed that was because he'd showed up so hastily). It was a party of three, all appearing to be in their late teens to early twenties. One was a rather pretty Chinese girl with long, dark hair pulled up into twintails. She stared at Allen almost apologetically— _Why does she seem like she's sorry for something?_ the waiter wondered—before glancing over at the man next to her. He was also of obvious Asian descent, though Allen couldn't quite pinpoint the origin. Japanese, maybe? He had long, dark hair, too, but his was pulled into a single high ponytail rather than two, and a small lock of silky hair hung down on either side of his angular face. _His hair looks really soft. I wonder what kind of shampoo he uses?_ Allen pondered, but judging by the harsh scowl on the man's face as well as how he glared daggers up at him, the waiter figured he probably shouldn't ask. Lastly, another man sat next to the first, this one far less menacing in impression. He seemed rather easygoing, slouching in his seat in a relaxed manner, and had a head of wild, fiery red hair pulled back with a green headband that did little to control the unruly mane. He stared up at Allen in almost childish wonder with one wide, green eye—yes, _one_. His right eye was covered by a black eye patch. _How unusual..._ Allen thought to himself, though he didn't really pay much mind to it. He wasn't exactly one to talk when it came to oddities in appearance.

At last, the girl cleared her throat with a slightly embarrassed smile. A slight tint of red formed on her cheeks, and she looked up at Allen sheepishly. She glanced down at the menu again and began, "I'll just have Sprite, pleas—," only to be harshly interrupted by a loud exclamation from the red haired boy across from her.

" _Whoaaaaa!_ " he all but shouted in awe, leaping to his feet all of a sudden and leaning forward to stare closely at Allen's face with his hands on the table excitedly. Allen nearly yelped at the dude's sudden proximity to his face. He was leaning dangerously _close_ , barely a few inches remaining between their noses. The whitette could even feel his breath against his face. Allen's face flushed at the way the redhead's eye was trained on him so intently. _He's rather attractive_ , he thought with a gulp, his face heating up to a full on blush. Why was this guy getting so close to him? He didn't know whether to be shocked or uncomfortable or embarrassed or _what!_ Was this normal? No, this definitely wasn't normal. How should he feel about this? As if on cue, the dude answered his question, exclaiming excitedly, "Guys, look at this dude! What a wicked scar! He's _so cool!_ "

Allen's sweat dropped. _What?_

The Chinese girl jumped to her feet and pushed the redhead down forcefully, causing him to fall back into his seat with a loud 'Oof—!' She all but shrieked in a panicked voice, " _Lavi!_ Don't just get all up in people's faces and comment on their appearances like that! It's incredibly _rude!_ " She whirled around to look at Allen in frenzied apology. "I am _so_ sorry for that! Lavi can be _such_ an idiot sometimes!"

"Oh calm down, Lenalee!" the guy, "Lavi," said with slight exasperation in his voice. It was a rather deep voice, Allen noted, though that same casualness he'd observed from the redhead before was clearly present in his words. "The guy doesn't mind! Look at 'im! He ain't angry!"

It was true that there was no trace of irritation on Allen's face, but that had less to do with the lack of it itself than it did with the fact that he was still trying to recover from being launched at by the ecstatic redhead. The whitette was used to being ogled at and receiving comments on his unique appearance from people, but dear god, he was _not_ accustomed to being practically _attacked_ by them! That threw him for a loop. It didn't help that the guy was rather loud (and hot, but Allen wasn't going to admit to that being part of the reasoning for his fluster), and the suddenness of it all left him feeling incredibly startled. Allen's head was just about _reeling_ with stupor from the unexpected bombardment of unusual events.

"Lenalee" seemed to interpret the confused expression on Allen's face her own way. "That's because you clearly _scared him_ into silence with your damn screeching, you dope!" she shouted at Lavi, her face contorted into an expression of scolding and rage.

Lavi looked offended. "Did _not!_ "

" _Did too!_ "

" _Che_ , can we just order our damn beverages already? You idiots are attracting stares!" the middle man growled at last. After looking all around them to find that the majority of the restaurant was in fact staring at them, both Lenalee and Lavi shrunk down into their seats in one form of shame or another.

"Sorry..." Lenalee just about squeaked, her face red with embarrassment, and finally looked back up to Allen. "I'll just have Sprite, please."

"Water," the angry guy said bluntly.

"Ginger ale for me!" Lavi chirped, already bouncing back to his childish mannerisms with a grin.

Allen scribbled all of this down and muttered, "R-Right away..." awkwardly before turning around to head back to the kitchen.

One last account of, " _You idiot!_ " from Lenalee to Lavi was all Allen heard before he was out of earshot.

" _Whoa_ , Allen, you okay? You look like you've seen a ghost!" Rikei commented upon seeing Allen's deathly pale face as he walked into the kitchen.

"Y-Yeah," Allen stuttered, his expression still locked into one of stiff confusion. "This table is just... kind of crazy."

"Seriously? Did they start doing back flips in their seats or something? Judging by the look on _your_ face, they must have pulled out some serious Circus shit out on you."

Allen stared at the brunet incredulously before shaking his head. "No, no, nothing like that. It wasn't all that ridiculous. I'm just overreacting." Had he really looked _that_ shocked? That was kind of embarrassing. Sure, the table was a bit weird, but it wasn't such a big deal that he should be worrying his coworkers. He really needed to get his shit together.

However, even with this in mind, Allen didn't say much to the odd trio when he returned with their drinks, or even when he came back to take their order. Despite deciding not to make a big fuss about the ordeal, the whitette still felt rather weary around the three. He was hoping that if he kept his time around the odd teens short, he'd be able to get through the duration of their meal without further incident. No further incident meant no further chance for him to overreact, after all. Luckily for him, the three seemed to be complying. Lenalee remained polite, a hint of apology in her eye every time she looked up at Allen, and the pissy guy in the middle never said much to him to begin with (Normally, he'd consider this incredibly rude, but after what had happened, he was thankful for it). Even Lavi stayed in his seat quietly, an act Allen suspected was at least in part influenced by a scolding from his other two companions when he was away with their beverages. He was rather relieved by this, and said relief became even greater as the restaurant began to slow down. By the time Table 19's food was ready, he only had three tables, all of which had at least already ordered their food. Allen finally was able to let out a sigh as the stressed tension that had built up in his stomach throughout the evening finally came undone. He was certain he'd be able to get through the rest of the evening with ease.

 _What a mistake it was to let his guard down_.

Allen carefully balanced the tray containing the trio's food on the palm of his hand. They'd ordered a Caesar salad, a double stacked loaded burger with extra mustard and a side of fries, an order of the kids' chicken tenders (Allen may have informed Lavi that the Kids' Menu was only for ages 12 and under or at _least_ questioned his choice of the children's portion as opposed to the adults' if it weren't for his intense desire to keep conversation with the redhead as brief as possible), and an order of pretzels with cheese and chocolate dipping sauces to share. The meals weren't super heavy (Allen had developed quite a bit of arm muscle from carrying large amounts of plates at once over the months), but since a somewhat large tray way needed to carry four plates at once, Allen knew he'd need to go slow and steady so it'd stay balanced on his hand. Since The Pretzel Cafe wasn't very busy, he figured this wouldn't be much of a problem and stepped out of the kitchen with his eyes trained very carefully on the tray in his left hand. In fact, he was so focused that he didn't even notice the approaching shout of, "Don't hurt me, Yuu!" let alone have time to react when the same voice screeched, "LOOK OUT!" A speeding force came crashing into him before he could even register what was happening.

The next thing Allen knew, he was sprawled on his back in a pile of food and broken plates seeing stars. He felt the shards of glass piercing his skin in a few places, and he stared at the ceiling dazed. Had he slipped? He could hear a high pitched voice shrieking incoherently nearby, and some guy asked him if he was okay from his position atop Allen.

 _Wait..._

 _Atop_ Allen?

" _Rape!_ " Allen shrieked, sitting up with a start. Consequently, his head crashed into the dude's, causing the man to fall backward off of him in an ungraceful heap, yelping in pain. He panted. What the hell was that? One second, he was carrying a tray, and the next, he was on the floor with some red haired guy on top of him! His frenzied thoughts then came to a stop for a moment as he paused. _Wait... Red hair?_ Allen inspected the guy he'd just skull slammed onto the floor more closely before squinting his eyes uneasily in recognition. " _Lavi?_ "

"Owowowowow... Why'd you headbutt me, dude?" Lavi whined, rubbing the bump on his forehead. Oh my god, it was him.

" _Why_ were you on top of me?!" Allen screeched, turning completely red, his voice shrill less with anger than with renewed panic. What the _bloody hell_ did this guy think he was doing?!

"I just kinda landed that way!" Lavi defended, eye widened in surprise at the volume of Allen's voice. "I don't _mean_ to crash into people! It just kinda _happens!_ "

The whitette stared at him incredulously. "Is this a _habit_ of yours?"

"Heh... Yeah, a bit," Lavi admitted sheepishly before grinning at him in a similar manner. "I'm sorry for crashing into you, dude. But Yuu was chasing me, and he was out for _blood!_ " Allen was confused for a moment, but then he looked around at the broken plates and scattered food and realized finally what had happened: Lavi had barreled into him while he was bringing out their food, causing him to drop the tray and fall sprawled into the remains with the cause of it all on top of him.

Allen's eyebrows furrowed. "Wait, _I_ was chasing you? I was bringing out your food!"

Lavi's eye widened and he gaped in horror. "That was _our_ food?! FUCK, I WAS HUNGRY!" he cried, throwing back his head in anguish. The waiter stared at him disbelievingly. All of this, and all he cared about the _food?_ The guy was unbelievable. His heartbroken wailing was ceased suddenly, however, by a harsh kick to the head by a boot-clad foot.

Allen looked up to see one _very_ furious Lenalee glaring daggers at her sobbing companion. "IT'S YOUR OWN DAMN FAULT, YOU _IDIOT!_ " she screamed at the green-eyed male, who went pale at her enraged screaming. She looked at Allen, her violet eyes wide with apology, panic, and concern. "Oh my god, I'm so sorry! Lavi dumped the entire salt shaker in Kanda's drink while he was in the bathroom, and he totally flipped shit and started chasing him for blood! Lavi didn't mean to crash into you, he's just an idiot!" she explained frantically, tears beginning to well up in her eyes in shame.

The whitette just stared up at her dumbfoundedly. "Kanda?"

"Oh, that's Yuu over there," Lavi chimed in, jerking a thumb toward the pissy Asian guy, who Allen now noticed was standing a few feet away from the entire mess looking ready to blow a gasket despite having his head turned away from the other three in what Allen presumed to be his own version of embarrassment. It finally clicked in Allen's head that "Yuu" must have been his first name. So he _was_ Japanese.

"Do. Not. _Call me that!_ " Kanda spit at Lavi venomously, turning his head sharply to glare at the other male, who yelped in fear and covered his head protectively as if awaiting a blow.

At this point, Allen was beyond confused by all of this. Too much had happened over the course of two minutes, and he had no idea how to even make sense of it. So much was spinning in his head at once: The broken plates, his blurry vision (Did he have a concussion?), the pain of the glass in his flesh, the terrifying embarrassment of having an attractive stranger land on top of him, the bump forming on his head from its collision with Lavi's, Lenalee's panic, Kanda's name. He had no idea what to say. It was confusing mess in Allen's brain as he looked around at the three next to him as well as the wide-eyed strangers all around the cafe and the remains of the plates and food and finally down at his own body, the slightest bit bloody with glass cuts and covered in tiny chicken tenders. Then at last he got the words out:

"There's chocolate sauce on my shirt."

It was true. His red work shirt was splattered with a colorful array of condiments and dipping sauce, most of which he didn't think were going to wash out. The three teens beside him just blinked at him for a moment at his odd choice of words to speak in the midst of _all_ of this before it went right back to mayhem.

"Oh my god, _we're so sorry!_ " Lenalee shrieked, panicking all over again. "We'll pay for everything! We can get it dry cleaned, or better yet, we'll buy you a new one! We'll pay for our food and the shirt and clean up our own mess and go! We're so sorry for causing all this trouble!" Tears were streaming down the girl's face at this point. Allen winced at her loud shrieking. Christ, that was excessive. Could she calm down? Well, like, he understood _why_ she was freaking out—This whole thing was kind of a mess, after all—but he was just too confused to deal with this. At this point, he was too wiped by all the commotion to care anymore. He just wanted to be done with it and go home.

"It's honestly fine," Allen replied, sighing in exasperation before looking up at the nearby counter, where Link was watching the entire incident with his jaw hanging open. "Can I clean up this mess and leave early once all my tables are done?" he asked the shocked man.

Link just shook his head and replied, "I'll have Shifu do it. Just go home." The whitette almost retorted, not wanting to dump his problems on his coworker, when he saw the look of pity in Link's eyes. He suddenly understood that he felt bad about all of this, and this was his way of apologizing for all the trouble. Allen nodded awkwardly before clocking out and exiting the building through the back without another word.

Allen ignored the pain in his limbs from the glass as he walked toward his car briskly, sighing loudly. Why did this crap have to happen to _him?_ He seriously wanted to just go home, clean himself up, and fall asleep at this point. Work _usually_ left him exhausted, since as an introvert, being around and talking to so many people for such a long time was draining to him. But _this_? This went way beyond being a bit drowsy. Between the shocks/annoyances of Tumblr that morning and the chaos he'd dealt with at work, Allen was just 100% done with today. He pulled the handle of the drivers side, opening his car door, when suddenly the boy heard a shout. He looked up in the direction of the noise to see Lavi sprinting toward him, waving frantically.

"Wait up!" the redhead shouted, panting. "I'm really sorry! Let me make it up to you!"

Allen just shook his head. Why was this guy still bugging him? "Don't bother, it's _fine!_ I just wanna go home!"

"Let me at least pay for your shirt or something!" Lavi pleaded, still running toward his as fast as he could across the parking lot, but Allen shook his head again.

"Don't worry about it! It's a cheap shirt anyway!" Before Lavi could say anything else, Allen got into the drivers seat of his car, started the ignition, and drove away. He had no more energy to deal with the eccentric redhead. As he approached the end of the parking lot, he saw in his rear view mirror that Lavi was standing in the parking space he'd just pulled away from, staring after him and panting.

Through his cracked window, Allen heard the distant shout of Lavi yelling, "I _will_ make it up to you somehow! _I promise!_ " just as he faded from earshot. He rolled his eyes and rolled up the window.

* * *

Allen sighed as he toweled the last of the moisture from his hair. It'd taken an entire painful hour to pull all the tiny shards of glass from his skin so he could pull off his work clothes. He'd immediately taken them to the wash, hoping that extra detergent would be enough to get the stains out as long as they were fresh, before returning the the bathroom for the second shower that day. None of the glass wounds were that deep (Thank God), but the water at Allen's feet had still run pink with blood during the shower. The pain had already subsided for the most part. It wasn't the worst he'd endured in his life, after all. Compared to _some_ wounds he'd had in the past, this was barely a paper cut. Allen had scrubbed away the blood and the food from his skin before taking a lavish amount of shampoo to his hair. He'd paused for a moment as he felt something solid among the (more or less) white locks and had completely frozen when he'd pulled it out to discover it to be a tiny chicken tender that'd somehow gotten stuck in his hair.

He had just stared at the chicken tender for several moments before crushing it in his fist and tossing it into his bathroom trashcan. Freaking Lavi. He _seriously_ hated his job sometimes.

Now Allen tossed aside the towel he'd dried himself with and walked to his bed in a comfortable T-shirt and basketball shorts. He flopped down with a particularly exhausted sigh before wiggling around a bit when he felt something solid under his spine. He pulled out the object, revealing it to be his phone he'd left there on accident that afternoon. Once again, the screen was lit up with Tumblr notifications, but after the stresses of the day, it didn't really feel like such a big shock to him anymore. With yet another sigh, Allen unlocked his phone and checked on his stupidly famous text post.

He almost choked.

8,782 notes?!

 _Was that even POSSIBLE?!_

He checked the notes again, and sure enough, most of them were 'likes' to ship him and the random person who'd reblogged his shit post. But this time, there were a lot more reblogs, and as everyone who's ever been on Tumblr knows, more reblogs equaled more people seeing the post. Still, even with this explanation, Allen gaped. It had only been a day, and he'd gotten nearly _9,000_ notes. He didn't even _try_ to guess how many followers he must've had now! He gulped. Was this Tumblr Fame? He'd always imagined it being glorious, but right now all he could feel was uneasiness. Would this pass? Would the _fame_ pass? Questions like these whirled around in his head in a frenzy, only being stopped when his DM Notifications lit up and pulled him from his stupor. He took a deep breath, gathering his wits. He was overreacting a bit to this, wasn't he? _One_ popular post or not, he was still Allen Walker, the 18-year-old waiter who'd gotten bowled over by a stranger over a salt water prank that day and ended up dropping four different plates before he headbutted his attractive attacker!

…

Allen started laughing.

Although everything had been really confusing and sucked at the time, and yeah, the glass wounds still ached, he had to admit, looking back on this entire story? This was... kind of _hilarious._ And _god knew_ that f0u would laugh her _ass_ off at it! The more he thought about it, the more Allen cracked up and the more he couldn't wait to tell her about the whole incident. He clicked on his DMs and prepared to type up the entire story to his dear female friend.

… Except that wasn't who the notification was from.

Allen furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. Nobody had _ever_ messaged him but f0u before... Who was this? He read the name. _"hammer-time"?_ Oh. _Oh._

This was the person who he was gonna date according to almost 9,000 random strangers.

 _What could they possibly want?_ he wondered before opening up the message.

 _hammer-time: Hey, dude! It's me, your OTP shipmate! ;D_

Allen stared at the casual message for a moment before typing back. Considering how bewildered he was about everything that'd occurred that day, he didn't understand how this person could greet him so calmly. Although, he'd _had_ a pretty weird day even beyond the Tumblr post's explosion, so maybe this was all just his own confused feelings affecting him.

 _xXcrown-clownXx: Hi...? 0.o_

The reply was fast.

 _hammer-time: Awe, don't get all weird on me! I'm not creepy! At least not usually! D':_

 _xXcrown-clownXx: Oh, uh, sorry... o.o_

 _hammer-time: Ok, you still seem kinda freaked out, so I should probably explain myself. I just wanted to talk to you. Wait, does that still sound creepy? No! I just thought we could be friends or something! Ya know, since we're half of tumblr's OTP rn? I wanna get to know my internet soulmate! ;) XD_

Allen just stared at the message for several seconds before closing out of the conversation. _Absolutely not._ He'd had enough weird surprises for one day without including making a commitment to get to know someone half the Internet wanted him to date. Maybe if he just didn't reply, the person would think he didn't see the message and leave him alone. Yeah! That could work! He'd just close the Tumblr app and pretend this whole thing never happened!

Then he got another notification. The one was from fr13nd-0r-f0u.

 _fr13nd-0r-f0u: dont u dare close out that conversation, clownie._

Allen's eyes doubled in size.

 _xXcrown-clownXx: How the FUCK did you know? O_O_

 _fr13nd-0r-f0u: /i used my magic crystal ball/. Bc im the one who told him 2 talk 2 u, duh!_

 _xXcrown-clownXx: You did WHAT?!_

 _fr13nd-0r-f0u: dont give me that! U should talk 2 the dude!_

 _xXcrown-clownXx: /Why/?_

 _fr13nd-0r-f0u: bc u need this! rnt u tired of the only people u talk 2 outside of work being me n ur cat?_

 _xXcrown-clownXx: That felt incredibly uncalled for e_e_

 _fr13nd-0r-f0u: case n point! look, I already talked him into talking 2 u. thats already half the battle! plus, half the internet ships u 2, I checked out his blog n confirmed that he also likes 21 pilots, AND he reblogged the same strawberry shortcake pic as u yesterday. its practically meant 2 b!_

 _xXcrown-clownXx: f0u, I understand what you're doing, but today's already been really confusing as it is. Do I have to add MORE weirdness to it? e.e_

 _fr13nd-0r-f0u: yes. yes u do._

 _xXcrown-clownXx: -_-_

 _fr13nd-0r-f0u: uuugh look, just TALK 2 him! whats the worst that can happen? cmon, it's called SOCIAL media. stop using it to be ANTIsocial!_

Allen sighed in defeat. If he were to continue arguing, she'd just keep retorting back. He supposed she had a point, anyway. It wasn't called _social_ media for no reason. Plus, he supposed that if he didn't like the dude he'd been so unwillingly shipped with, he could always stop talking to him at any time. _Oh, what the hell._

 _xXcrown-clownXx: *siiigh* Fine. I'll give him a chance... This isn't a final decision, though!_

 _fr13nd-0r-f0u: yayyyy clownie's being less emo for once! must be a christmas miracle ;P_

 _xXcrown-clownXx: It's not Christmas XD_

 _fr13nd-0r-f0u: oh shut ur piehole and go make a friend_

Allen laughed. He guessed it wouldn't hurt that much to do what she said after all. How much harm could making a new friend do, anyway? He closed out the conversation with f0u and opened the one with hammer-time.

 _xXcrown-clownXx: Yeah, I guess there's no harm in that :)_

 _hammer-time: YAYYYYYY YOU CONSENTED! :D Oh man, I'm so hype about this. I was so worried you'd tell me to go away D':_

 _xXcrown-clownXx: I thought about it ;P_

 _hammer-time: Oh ouch, dude. Harsh! ;c I feel so wounded rn. I don't think I'll ever recover from almost being rejected by a stranger on the internet!_

 _xXcrown-clownXx: Pfffft XD_

 _hammer-time: HEY! HEY! You laughed! :D We're practically BFFs already! Our fanbase is gonna be so happy~! ;D_

 _xXcrown-clownXx: I'm sure the fangirls will be ecstatic XD_

 _hammer-time: But hey, if we're gonna be a ship, we're gonna need a shipname. What's your name, dudio?_

Allen considered this for a moment. Should he really tell this person his name? He considered giving a fake name for a moment before shaking his head. _It'll be fine_ , he decided. _Allen's not exactly a rare name, and it's not like he'll have my last name!_

 _xXcrown-clownXx: I'm Allen c:_

 _hammer-time: Oh, swag! You're the second Allen I've met today! Well, anyway, I'm Rabi :3 So together, we're... RABEN! :D_

 _xXcrown-clownXx: *laughs ass off*_

 _hammer-time: Oh, ow! Laughing at your true love's shipname for you? How cold-hearted can you get? D'; /3_

Allen snorted to himself and smiled. Maybe this "Rabi" wasn't such a bad guy.

* * *

 **Shaberu-chan: Oooooh who's this "Rabi" guy~? ;D (I doubt it's hard to guess tbh XD) YAYYYY ANOTHER CHAPTER DOWN~! That was looooong XD Hopefully we won't get used to this, otherwise my updates will be slow... Speaking of, I'M SO SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG TO GET OUT! D: I've had this chapter written for, like, 4 days, but there was this one part that felt really stressed and awkward and I kept looking over it. FINALLY, after two hours today, I got this to be acceptable enough. Though I think the entire last half was awkwardly written, but I didn't wanna make you guys wait any long so sorry ;v; On the bright side, Chapter 3 is already written and just needs to be edited and proofread a few more times, so that should be out within the next couple of day~ Anyway, thanks to Cutiepie120041 (I'm glad you liked it ;w;), Vongolatte (AHHHH thanks so much! Your review gives me life 3), Pineapplebombgirl (Thanks, Nee-chan~ *glomps*), Deugemia (XD I'm basing Allen heavily off of my older brother (who is a community college dropout living at home who does nothing all day except occasionally go to his job as a waiter) and a little bit off of Elvira Rayne (she's a babe, but the girl behind the computer is a sassy little shit who hates laundry XD), so I'm hoping Allen will be a relatable character in this :3), and William Prince (Thanks so much~! ^~^) for reviewing, as well as to everyone who favorited/followed this story! 14 follows already?! I really appreciate the support omg thank you so much! QwQ Alright, anything to say, guys?  
Lavi: I was so damaging in this chapter! :D  
Allen: I was so damaged in this chapter T_T  
Shaberu-chan: Eh, you'll both be fiiiine~ Anyway, please remember to R&R, and I'll see you next time! :3 *throws confetti in the air***


	3. Chapter 3

**Shaberu-chan: The EndNote is long, so let's cut to the chase: Lenalee! You haven't gotten to say anything in these things yet! Why don't you do the Disclaimer? :3  
Lenalee: *smiles and waves* Shaberu-chan doesn't own DGM! ^.^**

* * *

Lavi groaned in boredom, his eyes just about rolling up into the back of his head as he knocked it on the brick wall once more. How much longer was it going to _be?!_ The longer this went on the more bored he got, and the more bored he got the longer it seemed to take! It was a never ending loop! What ungodly force had made it so that time he wasted waiting around seemed to not only last the longest, but also the most unbearably? This was _painful!_ Honestly, the redhead couldn't imagine how he was going to get through these tough times! It was godawful, it was horrendous, it was _torturous!_ For the love of god, he'd been waiting for a whole—

He checked the time on his phone. _Five minutes!_

Lavi groaned again, this one with an undertone of complete and utter whining, as he stared up at the partially cloudy sky. He silently cursed the gorgeous weather for mocking his suffering. Could the sky not _see_ he was dying over here?! The sun beamed down in warming rays, kissing his tan skin, and the gentle breeze caressed his unruly locks like the hands of an angel. The lush greenery of late summer rustled ever so slightly, their sounds only hidden in part by the humming of busy bees merrily buzzing about from flower to flower.

Lavi wanted to gag. It made him _sick!_

A particularly chipper bird flew into a nearby tree, chirping its song cheerfully, and caused Lavi to jump to his feet. "Shut _up!_ " he hollered in annoyed exasperation, waving his hands around the tree to shoo away the bird. The poor, innocent blue jay flapped its wings frantically and flew away in fear. Lavi watched, panting with effort, as it disappeared into the distance. He then flopped down to the ground in exhaustion from his outburst and sighed a dramatic sigh of regret. This wasn't him, man! He loved pretty weather like this! He loved sunshine! He loved bees! He loved chirping birds (or more specifically, getting into whistling battles with chirping birds)! It was just... He was _so damn bored!_ Having nothing to do was the most aggravating thing ever for him, and he couldn't stand waiting around like this. It was awful! He rolled over onto his side and sighed. He'd already considered ditching the place. Several times. But each and every time, he'd reminded himself again why he was here: _for his darling Lenalee!_

But not in a romantic way or anything like that, god no.

The Chinese girl was one of Lavi's two bestest of best friends in the entire world! They'd been companions for about a year now. Like most people, he'd met her by quite literally barreling into her. Although, he didn't really consider the event to be _his_ fault. How was he supposed to know that it was dangerous to skateboard down the ever-so-tempting railing of the large staircase in the lobby of the community college Lena went to?

… Right when classes got out and the place was filled with people.

… And he didn't know how to skateboard.

But, hey! One trip to the hospital together had been enough for the two to become pretty chummy with each other, and as he'd said, here they were one year later, still besties!

Which, unfortunately, was the reason Lavi was here now. Since both of them were broke college students, they did their part in conserving gas by carpooling everywhere they went. On days Lenalee had morning classes at Black Order Community College, Lavi would drop her off, go get some breakfast, and return just in time to pick her and on some days Kanda up to go on their daily adventure! Today, said adventure was a dangerous exploration of the modernized jungle of shelves overflowing with ancient artifacts and priced antiques known as... _Kroger!_

In other words, Lenalee needed to pick up some milk from the store. It kept running out for some reason that Lavi's cereal-in-Kanda's-socks pranks _definitely_ had nothing to do with.

Anyways, Lavi had enjoyed a delicious breakfast of smiley face pancakes at IHOP and was now here on school grounds waiting for Lenalee's class to get out. Had he mentioned that said waiting was the most boring thing he'd everdone in his _entire_ life? He didn't think he had. He didn't know how much longer he could stand this agony! Lenalee's class didn't get out until 10:45! _10:45!_ Lavi jumped to his feet again only to collapse to his knees, arms thrown up in anguish. How _cruel_ this horrible world was! The horror, the _injustice_ it did to Lavi, making him wait around like this! How much worse could it get?! _How much MORE could his fragile being BEAR—?!_

Just then, a flood of students came out through the front doors, and Lavi rose to his feet again, immediately forgetting his entire eight minutes of unbearable suffering.

Like always, Lenalee was one of the first ones out. Her last Monday morning class was really close to the front doors, so she didn't really have that far of a walk. The second he saw the dark-haired girl, Lavi waved to her ecstatically.

"Yoo, LenaLady!" She looked over to him and walked over, shaking her head.

"You know you're going to get banned from the premises one of these days," Lenalee said exasperatedly, though Lavi saw the small smile of amusement tugging at the corner of her lips.

"Whaaat, why would I get banned?" Lavi whined. "The people running this place love me! I got my Associates Degree here!"

Lenalee stared at him blankly. "You've broken three windows, put four students including myself in the hospital, hit two of the administrators with doors hard enough to give them bloody noses, set the microwave on fire, and you accidentally blew up the Janitor's closet. How do you even do that, Lavi? How do you _accidentally_ blow up a closet?"

"That was _one_ time!"

"It's a miracle you haven't been arrested yet!"

"Pfft, cops ain't got nothing on me!"

"You truly are a force of nature," Lenalee chuckled, shaking her head before looking up at Lavi with a sudden smirk as she changed the topic. "By the way, how have things been going with your _bae_?"

Lavi lightly smacked Lenalee, only half-playfully, and she laughed with that special hint of loving sadism she had only for him and Kanda. Although he could never really be mad at the Cool Chica from Costa Rica (except not really that last part), he was the slightest bit irked at her latest stunt. See, recently, Lavi had been a bit... _confused_. And as much as he wished he could say that that wasn't what it sounded like, it was _exactly_ what it sounded like. Lavi, the self-proclaimed chick magnet, the high school womanizer, the ultimate lady lover, was _bicurious!_ This had taken years for the notorious playboy to admit to himself, as staring at the ever-so-sexy bods of hot babes (only half of which smacked him for it) had so long been a passion of his, and he wasn't sure how to cope with the fact that rippling pecks and abs weren't exactly unappealing either. So, naturally, he'd reached out to his closest friend who _wouldn't_ shove a katana up his ass for advice on the matter.

In hindsight, he realized that maybe telling a fantasizing teenage girl that he might like boys _wasn't_ the best idea.

Ever since, Lenalee had been more or less subtly been trying to "encourage" (force) Lavi to try out guys. Clearly, she did not understand that he had a babe-loving reputation to uphold every time she "accidentally" tripped him into the arms of a ripped dude. But the damage was done, and there was no escaping from it now. Lavi had grown used to stunt after stunt by Lenalee trying to set him up with men, and at this point, he was able to avoid most of them.

This latest one, however, as much as he hated to admit it, he had completely set himself up for.

Lavi had spent his Saturday afternoon doing what he loved most: Bothering his other bestest of best friend, Yuu Kanda. He'd thought it'd be funny if he stuffed the scary Japanese man's kendo practice sword sheathe with ketchup as a prank. He'd figured the joke would be harmless: Yuu would shout, give him his signature death glare, and they'd have a good laugh over the whole thing later (Well, he would, anyway). However, it had become very apparent as Kanda forcefully unsheathed his sword and ketchup splattered all over everything in a four foot radius that Lavi wasn't going to get out of this without a few scratches. After a thrilling chase consisting of curses so creatively violent that Lavi couldn't even remember them and several slashes of a ketchup-covered sword at the " _FUCKING RABBIT_ ," Lavi had found himself hiding in a rather large air vent, where he'd ended up waiting it out for a solid six hours until Kanda at last gave up the chase. In said time, Lavi, like he so often did, had found himself horrendously _bored_. So, to kill the time, Lavi had done what any reasonable youth would do: he got on Tumblr.

Tumblr wasn't really something Lavi put a lot of thought into. He just reblogged a post he found funny here and there, never really paying attention to things like followers and notes. The social media site was little more than something the redhead used to pass the time, hence why he had found it quite appealing in his situation trapped in the vents. Scrolling down his endless dash had been a pretty easy way to make the hours fly by. In fact, it'd been about four hours into his hiding when he'd come across the post.

It hadn't been anything special. Just some dumb text post about the poster wanting someone to kiss them on the cheek after they kicked their ass in Mariokart that one of the many blogs Lavi followed had reblogged with the tag "#relatable." The thing had only gotten 3 notes, and it probably wasn't going to get a whole lot more, so Lavi had taken pity in reblogging the thing. The redhead hadn't even really meant what he'd said when he'd typed up the caption complimenting the first one perfectly. Honestly, it'd been intended as more of a treat to the most like unpopular OP than anything. Like yeah, sure he'd dig it if he could find a girlfriend (or maybe boyfriend) who he'd wanna kiss even after having his ass handed to him in one of the most frustrating games to competitively in existence. That'd be pretty damn swag. But like, who wouldn't like that? It wasn't really intended to imply some fated romance with the original poster. And maybe it never would've.

 _If it hadn't been for Lenalee._

The next morning, Lavi had discovered her latest attempt of setting him up: Reblogging that text post from him and subsequently causing thousands of people on the Internet to ship him with the stranger (who, as Lavi had discovered upon further investigation, was in fact male). He'd wanted to slam his face into a wall. She was _really_ playing dirty this time! Lenalee _knew_ that Lavi was a people pleaser. After all, he'd been a popular person his entire life due to his charismatic personality and both self and otherwise proclaimed good looks. He was just naturally someone who liked to please the public! It'd taken all of his self restraint to resist Lenalee's diabolical plan and avoid talking to the dude for an entire day despite the rapidly rising note numbers as well as Lenalee's constant prodding for him to do so. But after a rather eventful dinner (or lack of) at The Pretzel Cafe, Lavi had received a DM from some chick going by "fr13nd-0r-f0u" all but _begging_ him to talk to the apparently very antisocial dude, and his morals had finally gotten the best of him. Much to Lenalee's smug satisfaction, Lavi was now talking to a guy who thousands of strangers on the Internet shipped him with. _Absolutely wonderful._ Could you tell that was sarcasm? He wasn't sure you could.

...

Though Lavi would never admit to Lenalee, it wasn't _that_ bad talking to the guy... In fact, he was already beginning to take quite a liking to him. They'd only been talking for about, what? 12 hours? Yet, Lavi had already discovered that he and Allen in fact had quite a lot in common. They both enjoyed a lot of the same video games, neither of them were very _good_ at said video games, they both enjoyed sweets, they both had a best female friend who only _occasionally_ threatened to hurt them, _and_ they both had similar tastes in music. Lavi thought the guy was pretty rad! Sure, he'd lied that his name was "Rabi" for safety purposes (Hey, Lavi was a pretty uncommon name! Giving that out on the Internet was dangerous! He could get, like, kidnapped and sold into slavery or something! Who'd be around to fill the world with sexilicious awesomeness then, huh? Kanda? Ha! _Unlikely._ ), but this Allen guy was pretty cool. Funny in his own way and easy to talk to. Lavi liked that.

Yeah, he'd already decided that he'd _never_ let Lenalee know that.

Because of this, Lavi was now attempting to come up with a witty retort to Lenalee's question. Something clever, with just enough spice to make her eat her words. He almost had it... Yes, yes, that was it—!

The words were lost somewhere in Lavi's throat as he noticed a familiar figure exiting the building.

" _Hey—!_ " Lenalee shrieked in surprise as she was promptly tackled into a nearby cluster of bushes by Lavi. He shushed her, focusing closely on the figure. All thoughts of sassing Lenalee for mocking him disappeared immediately.

"Lenalee, isn't that the guy from yesterday?" Lavi whispered in shock, staring intently at the dude who'd just exited the community college. Surely enough, it was a guy somewhere around Lenalee's age with stark white hair and a distinct red scar down his left eye. There was no mistaking it—not that it could be mistaken anyway, as that set of features wasn't exactly common—that was Allen! Not Allen-from-Tumblr Allen, but Allen the Waiter!

To be honest, Lavi did feel like kind of an ass after the events of the previous day. Not because of his having complimented Allen's cool appearance or for dumping salt in Yuu's water—that was seriously hilarious—but even Lavi had had a sense of guilt when a complete stranger had to be sent home covered in chicken tenders and glass with stains all over his work shirt because of him. He probably had to buy that with his own money, man! Even _if_ Lenalee hadn't given him that long rant jam-packed with guilt tripping, he still would've felt awful. He wasn't heartless, ya' know! That's why he'd asked the manager dude with the braid what the waiter's name was and sprinted out to the back to apologize. Unfortunately, he'd gotten there a little too late, and Allen disappeared for possibly ever...

Psych! _Anyone_ who knew Lavi Bookman knew that when he set his mind on something, he was not deterred easily, and he had _promised_ Allen that he'd make it up to him! Granted, he'd expected to have to go through several weeks of relentless stalking to find the guy, but hey, this actually made things quite a bit easier. _Swag._

Lenalee sat up from her sprawled position on the ground where Lavi had tackled her and squinted her eyes at the whitette, who was rummaging through his jacket pockets—Christ, why was the dude wearing a hoodie? It was like eighty degrees out!—for something. "Yeah, I think it is," Lenalee confirmed, her violet eyes widening in surprise. "I didn't know he went to school with me..." She suddenly looked incredibly guilty. "Oh god, he's a student? Now I feel even worse for letting you idiots bombard him! I wish he would've let us at least pay for his shirt..."

Suddenly, a light bulb went off in Lavi's head. He turned his head to look at Lenalee slowly, a wide grin growing on his face. "Oh, Lenalee~" he hummed in a sing-song voice.

"What?" The Chinese girl asked as she looked at him. Her eyes widened in fear upon seeing that grin and realizing what was going through the dope's head. "Oh. Oh no. Absolutely _not_ , Lavi!"

He stuck his bottom lip out and whined, "But Lenalee! This is our chance to repent for our pretzel-flavored sins! Can't you see it's basically _fate_ that we ran into him here?

"No!'

"But _LenaLady!_ " Lavi was pouting at this point, giving her the puppy eyes—er, eye.

Lenalee just stared at him, her expression hardened with finality, and declared "No! We are _not_ doing that, and that's final! I will absolutely _not_ let you talk me into this!"

* * *

"I can't believe I let you talk me into this!"

Lenalee trudged behind Lavi surrounded by a cloud of utter gloom. She'd argued with Lavi for a good fifteen minutes in the bushes, and somehow she'd _still_ ended up getting dragged into his stupid plan! She couldn't believe she was doing this. Sure, she'd let Lavi talk her into some stupid stunts before, but... but...

 _Stalking a complete stranger was on a whole other level!_

Lavi inwardly smirked in victory. It'd been pretty hard to talk Lena into this. The entire car ride, she'd moaned and groaned something about following a complete stranger being both illegal and incredibly creepy, but Lavi'd chosen to ignore her mood-killing negativity and focus on the positive things, like trailing the car the white-haired waiter had gotten into. He'd almost deadpanned when the guy pulled into the Kroger parking lot, though. _Seriously? We would've just run into him here anyway!_ Oh well. A little good-natured stalking never hurt anyone, he guessed.

Nevertheless, here they were now, pushing a shopping cart several feet behind poor unsuspecting Allen the Waiter.

"I _really_ don't want to do this..." Lenalee whimpered, her head hung in gloomy defeat.

Lavi just rolled his eyes. "Go get your milk then! I can handle this!"

"Like _hell_ I am leaving you alone with that poor boy!"

"Then stop complaining!"

Lenalee sighed. "Why don't you just _do it_ already? Why do you keep following him around?"

Lavi rolled his eyes again. "I'm waiting for him to get out of the vicinity of the security cameras, _duh!_ "

"Security cameras? Why would that matter— _Lavi, you promised you weren't going to do anything illegal to him_!"

"We already _are_ doing something illegal to him! Too late to fix that!" Lavi pointed out with a grin. "Besides, I'm not gonna drug him or something like that! I just...don't want this to be a misunderstanding is all!"

Lenalee stared at him. "That sounds incredibly suspicious."

"It'll be fiiine—Oh, he's approaching a bling spot! Pull left, LenaLady!"

She did as told, but not without asking, "How exactly do you just _know_ where the blind spots of the Kroger security cameras are off the top of your head?" with a weary stare.

Lavi winked, or maybe blinked. "Years of practice. Okay, now stay with the cart! I'll take it from here!"

"What are you going to do, exactly?"

Lavi grinned. "Something crazy."

* * *

Allen squinted to read the scribbled writing on the crumpled grocery list. Did that say cantaloupe or chloroform? He couldn't really tell. He sighed, mentally slapping himself for not folding the grocery list before putting it in his pocket. He couldn't read anything on the damn thing! Already, he'd picked up several items he found questionable. Why the hell would he need super-strength laxatives?! What had he been thinking writing _that_ on the list? Though, the more and more he thought about it, the more he suspected that that had actually said "strawberry lemonade"... Ah. He'd have to go back for that, but not before he grabbed a cantaloupe from the produce section. Seeing as he couldn't think of a reason he'd need to drug someone nor did he think that Kroger in fact _sold_ chloroform, he deduced that the c-word on his list was probably the first option.

After grabbing the melon-like fruit, he looked at his list again. What was next? He squinted at the text. Adult Diapers? He decided that probably was supposed to say "Axe Deodorant."

Allen pushed his more or less questionably filled cart over to the deodorant aisle by the far wall and began inspecting the choices. Somewhere nearby, he could vaguely hear hushed voices, but as voices often did to him in public, they just went in one ear and out the other. He was too focused on the deodorant to really make out what they were saying. The names of the antiperspirant sticks dumbfounded him. Why were women's deodorants always scented with things like "tropical rush," "valley rose," and "light radiance," while men's deodorants ranged from "Swagger" and "Provoke" to "Wolfsthorn"? Swagger's not a smell. Swagger's hardly even a distinguishable thing! Allen hated it when people said they had "swag." Unless they meant that they were currently carrying a stick of Old Spice Swagger deodorant, he didn't wanna hear it! He then sighed. _I guess I should just look for my deodorant already_ , Allen thought to himself as he forced himself to ungrit his teeth. There was no point in putting himself in a bad mood over _deodorant scents_ of all things. He reached up to grab his preferred Axe Apollo stick deodorant, carefully standing on his tip toes to reach the high shelf. The entire aisle was very precisely balanced, and he needed to be equally precise if he planned on getting out of there without knocking any of the hundreds of deodorant sticks over.

That plan was immediately put to failure as a loud shout of "ALLEN!" came from behind him followed by a red blur bear tackling him smack into the wall. Allen _screamed_.

Hundreds of variously scented deodorant sticks came raining down upon them at once, dispersing far and wide among the tiles of the aisle's floor. Allen would've gaped in shock at the sea of deodorant around him if it weren't for the far more terrifying matter quite literally _on top of him_. Allen was still screaming, thrashing in panic under the stranger pinning him down. Who was this guy? He'd said Allen's name. Was it a rapist? Or _worse—_ Was it someone Cross sent to collect his debts?! Oh _god_ , not another loan shark! _Anything_ but that!

"I don't have any money! Please don't hurt me!" Allen sobbed, going completely limp in defeat.

The figure above him looked confused. "What? Money? No! No, Allen it's me! Remember? From last night?" Allen finally got a good look at his attacker's face. Suddenly he wished it _was_ a loan shark.

"L-Lavi?" Allen stuttered, looked at the larger man and tensing up in shock.

Lavi grinned. "You _do_ remember my name!" Allen's sweat dropped. _How could he forget?_

"B-But this doesn't make any sense," Allen stammered, staring up at the beaming redhead on top of him. "How did you find me? Are you stalking me? _How do you know my name?_ "

Lavi waved his hands in a I-mean-no-harm manner with a sheepish smile. "No! No! Well, I mean, we _did_ kind of follow you here, but we would've bumped into you anyway so that doesn't matter!" Allen didn't really follow _that_ logic, but okay... "As for the name thing, I asked the blond guy at the cafe with the dots on his forehead about you! Cool guy. Didn't really seem to like me though..." Lavi trailed off, eyebrows furrowed in confusion as if someone _dis_ liking him was the most unfathomable thing ever.

Allen rolled his eyes. " _I wonder why?"_

"Awe, c'mon, don't be like that! You're a waiter, you're supposed to be, like, polite and shiz!"

The whittette's face was blank for a moment before he stared up at the redhead with his eyes squinted. "Lavi... You... _do_ realize that people in the serving industry have personalities beyond their politeness at work, right?"

Lavi opened his mouth as if to respond, but was promptly caught off by a _very_ familiar screech.

" _Lavi Patricia Bookman,_ get off of him this _instant!_ "

Allen glanced over to the right to find a familiar dark-haired girl staring down at the situation with a jug of 2% milk in hand, her face red with fury. Ah, Lenalee.

Allen looked up to Lavi again with an eyebrow raised. "Your middle name's Patricia?"

"No, I think she just doesn't know my middle name and made one up to scold me," Lavi admitted with a sheepish grin before looking over at Lenalee. "And it's _fine_ , Lena! I talked to him, we're cool!"

"I never said that!" Allen interjected. Lavi ruffled his hair.

"Sure you did! You haven't run away screaming yet. That's basically friendship!"

"I haven't run away screaming yet because you are quite literally _sitting_ on top of me." Allen looked away, hoping Lavi couldn't see the small blush forming on his face as he called attention to their positions. Lavi had grabbed each of his wrists to keep him from struggling and as a result was pinning them to either side of his head, but in order to keep his weight on the extremities, the redhead had to lean over rather _far_ , causing him to basically straddle the smaller boy. Lavi seemed to notice their positions at last, and Allen could've sworn he saw the ever so slightest dust of pink ghost the redhead's cheeks.

"Ah, so it seems I am. Sorry 'bout that!" Lavi chuckled, at last getting off the boy and standing up. He offered a hand to Allen, but the whitette ignored it and stood on his own.

"So what do you want exactly?" Allen questioned at last, a blank expression on his face. Usually, he'd make an effort to be polite with people he didn't know, but considering that he'd just gotten bear tackled into a wall of deodorant, he wasn't exactly in the mood to be chipper. Hell, even the stupid _UPS guy_ hadn't given him this much of a headache!

Lavi beamed at him again. "To make you _so_ happy that your smile gets way too big for your skull and falls off your face into an endless abyss of rainbows and sunshine and— _ow_!" He was promptly cut off by a gallon of milk being slammed down upon his head by Lenalee. The redhead crouched, twin trails of tears streaming down his face as he clutched his skull and stared up at the violent female. "Mean..."

Lenalee smiled cheerfully at Allen, though he could see that the expression was tense with annoyance at Lavi. "What he _means_ to say is," Lenalee said aggravatedly before her chipper smile turned into one of sheepishness. "We want to make it up to you?"

Allen just stared at her. " _Huh?_ "

Lenalee sighed, looking down at the plastic carton of milk in her hands, which now had a prominent dent in it. _Christ, she hit Lavi with that hard_ , Allen thought, staring at the thing. _No wonder Lavi's crying..._ The whitette glanced over at the sobbing redhead, who had now taken to curling up on the floor, murmuring words of self-pity to himself as he wallowed around among the many deodorant sticks. Another drop of sweat rolled down the side of Allen's head, and he turned back to focus on Lenalee. "We feel really bad about yesterday," the Chinese girl admitted, looking incredibly ashamed about the whole incident. "I mean, you were just doing your job, and I let the two idiots hurt you, break four plates, and ruin your shirt. I'm so sorry!" She bowed her head in apology.

"I-I don't really think that's _your_ fault," Allen stammered awkwardly, unsure of how to react to her bowing. Wasn't that a Japanese custom or something? _You don't see a whole lot of that in the States... he thought._ Was he supposed to, like, pat her head or something? What was the proper etiquette here?

However, before he could do _anything_ , Lenalee's head popped back up all of a sudden, almost making Allen jump. "How can we make it up to you? Can we pay for the plates? And your shirt, certainly your shirt!" she pleaded, staring at him with wide eyes.

Allen waved his hands, startled by her eagerness. "N-No!" he stammered, "I already told you it's fine! You don't have to do that—" He was cut off my Lavi, who jumped to his feet suddenly, almost causing Allen to fall back into the deodorant wall with a start. The redhead had apparently stopped crying at some point and was now right back to a beaming grin. Just looking at the bright smile made Allen feel the need to buy sunglasses.

"Allen's right!" Lavi exclaimed, throwing an arm around said boy's shoulder, much to his complaint. "We have to do him even better! We have to take him out to lunch!"

"W-What?" Allen stuttered in shock. "That's not what I meant! And can you please get your arm off of me—?"

Lavi ignored him and just continued babbling on. "We'll pay for his food and buy him desert, and while he's eating we can give him money for the plates and the shirt, and then we can all go for ice cream and become friends!"

"N-Now hold on a moment—" Allen tried to interject again, only to be interrupted by Lenalee this time.

"That's a great idea!" she chirped, her face bright with a smile. "Though do you think he'll still want ice cream after we buy him desert...?"

Lavi brushed this concern off with an easygoing wave of his free hand. "Sure he will! Who doesn't want to go for ice cream _regardless_ of situation? Except maybe Yuu-chan..."

Allen tried again. "But—"

"Hm, I suppose that's true," Lenalee agreed with a nod, earning another grin from Lavi.

"See? This is gonna be great! Let's go right now!" he exclaimed.

"Now hold on just a _moment!_ " Allen shouted at last, finally getting the attentions of the other two youths present. He panted a bit from having to yell just to be heard. This was _ridiculous!_ "Look, I can't go out to lunch with you! I have work at 2PM and I have to get ready!" Okay, maybe this was a slight lie. Like always, he wasn't working until 5PM. But he _really_ didn't want to go out with these two. They were trying to make all these plans with him, and he was already exhausted just _talking_ to them! They were _way_ too hyperactive for Allen's tastes. Plus, he didn't like hanging out with people anyway. Like f0u so often teased, he was incredibly antisocial. He just wanted to go home and take a nap before work! Was that so much to ask for? A _nap?_

"Whaaat? No way!" Lavi whined for a moment before smirking again and returning to his easygoing state of relaxation with another wave of his free hand. "Then we'll take you out tomorrow! You get out of classes at 10:45 with Lenalee, right? We can pick you up from the school and go straight to Ruby Tuesday's or T.G. 's or Applebees—Oh, never mind, scratch out that last one! Ever since they changed their menu, that place has been _terrible!_ " Lavi stuck out his tongue with a false gag of disgust before returning to his normal grin again. "But we'll figure out something! We'll take you wherever you want, li'l bud! As long as we leave the school right away, it should be fine, right?"

Allen opened his mouth again to object, or maybe to ask how Lavi knew when and _where_ he got out of class, but ended up just closing it again and sighing in defeat. Arguing with this guy was _pointless_. He couldn't exactly lie and say that he had work even _earlier_. While he could get away with lying about his work schedule _today_ since the two eccentric youths were unlikely to show their faces at The Pretzel Cafe right away after the previous day's events, he couldn't be so certain about tomorrow, and it could get messy if they showed up to see him at work only to find that he'd been lying about his schedule all along. Allen didn't want this to get any more complicated than necessary, and so he hung his head with a sigh of defeat and murmured, "Okay..."

Both Lavi and Lenalee looked ecstatic. "Great!" the former cheered, putting Allen into a playful headlock and ruffling his hair before finally releasing him and grabbing Lenalee's wrist. "Well, we gotta go! Yuu-chan's kendo practice is getting out soon, and he'll kill us if we're late picking him up! Bye, Allen!" The redhead waved energetically with a huge smile before dragging his female friend out of the aisle and out of sight. Allen stood there for several minutes, staring off to where the two had disappeared, a grimace on his face. What had he just gotten himself into? _I hate my life sometimes..._ he thought with a sigh before grabbing one of the many Axe Apollo deodorant sticks from the floor and preparing to head over to the cash register, super-strength laxatives in cart at all. He really didn't have the energy to spend any more time here than necessary and just wanted to go home.

However, before he could leave the aisle, Allen was met with a Kroger employee—manager, he corrected upon seeing her badge, who gaped at the huge mess in complete and utter shock before glaring at Allen accusingly. He gulped at the malice in the woman's eye and immediately crouched down to start picking up the mess. He looked around frantically at all the labels to probably restock the things and almost fainted at the large abundance of nearly identical white tags with tiny black print. The whitette wanted to slam his face into a wall.

He _really_ hated his life sometimes.

* * *

 **Shaberu-chan: Ah, yes, setting up the next chapter like a charm~ This is a lot better than the original ending I had. Originally, this chapter was 4k words long and ended terribly. I pulled an all nighter finishing chapter 2 (I'm trying to make it so I have the next chapter written before I post stuff) and then wrote this that same morning because I needed to stay up in order to get my sleep schedule back on track. Needless to say, I was** _ **delirious**_ **, and the original ending to the chapter made Allen** _ **beyond**_ **OOC as well as created this really stressed, angry mood that was borderline angsty. I** _ **hated**_ **it. Although there will most likely be some angst further on, I wanna keep the majority of this story lighthearted and humorous! So when I woke up this morning feeling refreshed, I straight up deleted the last 600 words of the original chapter and wrote a new 1,500 word ending that I like a LOT better~ ;D I didn't read over this chapter very many times to proofread it so I apologize for any errors, but I hope you enjoy it! :3 I also hoped you enjoyed a little inside from Lavi's perspective~ Alright, this A/N is really long, so we gotta make this quick: Allen? Lavi? Whatcha think? You each get one word.  
** **Allen: Stupid. -_-  
** **Lavi: Awesome! :3  
** **Shaberu-chan: That'll do~! Anways, thanks to DemonOtaku (Thanks so much~! QwQ), Kittenanimegirl13 (I'll try my best~! *heart*), Danny Joey Ketail (I'll try to update soon then haha ^.^), Usagi-Twins (Allen is a poor unfortunate soul who gets dragged into everything in this fic X'D), Ryuakilover (Oh just wait for it 0v0 Muahaha), Guest (OMG I'M SORRY I DIDN'T SEE YOUR REVIEW BC I ACCIDENTALLY HAD THE GUEST REVIEW MODERATION THING ENABLED AHHHH COOKIE THANK YOU SO MUUUCH *hugs and gives confetti*), and Crown Clown (Thanks, ma dear~ ^.^) for reviewing, and to everyone who favorited/followed for your support! Please remember to R &R, and I'll see you next time! :3 *lights confetti fireworks***


	4. Chapter 4

**Shaberu-chan: LONG ENDNOTE. MUST HURRY. DO THE DISCLAIMER!  
Lenalee: Wha—?  
Shaberu-chan: NO TIME!  
Lenalee: 0.e Shaberu-chan doesn't own DGM...**

* * *

Allen yawned tiredly, rubbing his eyes again to try to bring the board at the front of the lecture hall into focus so he could write down the last of the information on the PowerPoint slide. He was seriously exhausted this morning. Work the previous evening had been a breeze (He'd shown up in his shirt, which had still been slightly stained from the chocolate sauce from the evening before, but he'd been surprised when his coworkers had greeted him at the door with lots of smiles and a bright new shirt. Apparently, everyone had tipped in a little of their earnings from the evening to buy a new shirt for Allen. He'd thought the entire gesture was kind of silly—company shirts were only like $10, after all—but he hadn't been able to help but smile like an idiot. His friends were really sweet.), but after he'd gotten home, he'd stayed up really late talking to his newfound friend, Rabi.

Rabi, like f0u (or "Fou" as she'd asked to be called after she realized that he hadn't known that was actually her name), hadn't taken long at all to become a good friend of his. Although Allen usually didn't open up easily, the guy he'd been so unwillingly shipped with turned out to be really easy to talk to. Allen didn't feel any shame in spilling out his personal likes and interests to the dude, just like he hadn't with Fou. Maybe it was an Internet friend thing that he'd been able to grow close to them so quickly? Whatever the case, Rabi was probably the coolest guy he'd ever met in his life. He was 21 years old, three years older than Allen, but wasn't currently enrolled in college on account of deciding where he wanted to complete his education. He'd already gotten his Associates Degree in Psychology, but after getting said degree, it'd occurred to him that psychology was neither what he wanted to do with his life nor something he'd be able to get a good job in, so he'd decided to drop out of community college not only to decide on a better major but also to hopefully find a better college to go to for said major. He'd gone to the community college in order to stay local, but now he was thinking he'd rather reach for the stars and go somewhere a bit more specialized and selective. After all, Rabi was a pretty smart guy, at least according to the more or less modest man himself. He was a bit of a bookworm, a fact that Allen found a happy coincidence as he'd done quite a bit of reading himself over the years due to not having very many friends to do otherwise with. Rabi had apparently done a lot more, though. He lived with his grandfather, who was a historian of sorts and had had a lot of influence on Rabi to enjoy history. Allen had just about gotten lost the previous night when the older man had began rambling on and on about the Punic Wars, which was Allen was currently studying in his General Ed World History course here at Black Order Community College. In fact, that was the class he was in right now...

 _Oh crap!_

Allen shook himself out of his stupor and squinted at the front of the room again only to become slightly horrified when he realized that the teacher had gone on for about five minutes while he was lost in thought. He tried desperately to keep up with the lesson, scribbling in his notes furiously, but he was already beyond confused. Who the bloody hell was Hadsdrubal? And what in God's name did he do to deserve getting double-staked by Consuls? _Wait, the Romans catapulted this guy's decapitated head into Hannibal's camp?_ _Harsh..._ After about two more minutes of desperately trying to follow the lesson to no avail, Allen dropped his pencil with a loud sigh, earning a glare of annoyance from the girl sitting a few seats away from him. This was pointless. The whitette could barely follow the history lessons when he _was_ paying attention. After zoning out, it was basically all for naught until the next class. He wanted to slam his face down on the table before him. He'd never pass this class at this rate. Allen could never keep track of all the important dates and details, let alone get a good idea of the overall significance. History just wasn't really his strong subject, he guessed. He rested his chin in the palm of his hand and stared at the Powerpoint on the overhead boredly while he waited for the class to get out. He'd have to find a summary on this stuff later. Surely there was _some_ other source he could learn about the Punic Wars from. After all, this _was_ the age of the Internet.

Allen mentally snapped his fingers. _That was it!_ He could just ask Rabi to explain all of this later! The older boy seemed to know more than enough about the subject last night, after all, and Allen was willing to bet that he'd be _more_ than happy to tell him about it again. Allen released a sigh of relief before sitting back in his seat with a slight smile on his face. Rabi was the best. Besides all that educational stuff, Allen had learned quite a bit about him over the day and a half or so they'd been talking, giving him a rather favorable opinion of the other male. For example, his favorite color was bright orange. Not necessarily like _neon_ orange, but a lively, intense shade. He'd said he liked it because it was lively and energetic, just like him. Plus it reminded him of a large wildfire, which had at first startled Allen—most people viewed forces of mass destruction without favoritism—but Rabi had went on to explain that he liked the idea of it because it was boundless and free, able to take down anything in its way while shining as bright as the Sun. Allen thought that was nice, having such an idealistic view of something usually thought of as horrendous. The whitette liked that about him.

Rabi thought unlike anyone else Allen had ever met in his _life_ , and the college student knew quite a few unique characters. But this guy was different. He had a rather... _interesting_ personality, at least that was the best Allen could describe it. On one hand, he was a humorous, energetic, outgoing force of nature, just like the wildfire he loved the color of. He couldn't go five minutes without making Allen laugh, and he'd told said younger boy about many a hilarious antic he'd pulled. For example, for his Senior Prank in high school, he'd set up a Slip-'n-Slide in the hallway and gotten a solid 20 students to strip down to their underclothing and slide. And that was one of his _tame_ pranks. Additionally, Rabi seemed to be on two cups of coffee at all times because he _never_ ran out of energy. This also contributed to his being interesting to talk to, since the hyperactive male never seemed to run out of conversation topics either. Never before Rabi had anyone ever asked Allen if he'd ever licked a cat before (The unfortunate answer to that had been yes, on account of many an instance of waking up with Timcanpy on his face). But this oddness made Rabi all the more fun.

On the other hand, however... Allen didn't really know.

For the most part, Rabi was charismatic and outgoing. Hell, that part composed for a good 95% of his personality as a whole. But there was something... else Allen had noticed about the older male. It wasn't anything super weird or creepy or anything like that, but on occasion, the 21-year-old would say something with a bit of a different tone that his usual chipperness. Like at one point, politics had come to be the topic of discussion. The possible election of Donald Trump ( _dear lord_ ) and such had been talked about, but when conflict with ISIS came into play and in turn war as a whole, Rabi had ended the topic on an... interesting note. Allen couldn't quite put his finger on what it was, but the older boy's tone had held a hint of something... darker than it usually did. This had perplexed the whitette at first, but he'd shrugged it off pretty quickly. He'd only known the guy for two days. That wasn't exactly enough experience with him to make a very good judgment of him. Besides, the bright bubbly part of Rabi's personality was far more prominent. After many a humorous discussion of pranks, bad movies (Allen had to wonder what on Earth "RoboGeisha" was... It sounded _awful_.), and many a fun video game, it was beyond easy to forget about the slightest bit of darker tones. Allen thought back on their conversation about their failures in Minecraft with a smile of fondness.

Rabi was _so_ cool.

The sudden movements of students all around him pulled Allen from his thoughts once again, and he noticed that everyone was packing up their note-taking materials and heading toward the door. Thankful that this godawful class was finally over, the whitette stowed away his few things and joined stream of students leading him out of the lecture hall. He couldn't wait to go home and kick back until work at 5PM. He could do so much of _nothing_ in six hours! He could work on beating "Through the Fire and Flames" on Guitar Hero and blog on Tumblr and talk to Rabi—Oh, how he wanted to talk to Rabi!—and take a nap, all after he ate a deliciously cheap lunch, of course!

Allen paused. _Lunch..._ Why did that word send such a weird feeling of complete and utter _dread_ through his body?

It was only when he saw a certain red haired boy and his Chinese female friend standing outside through the glass doors that Allen remembered why he was _currently_ hating his life.

Allen stopped in place abruptly, earning many an irritated glare from the sea of students who now had to go around him to exit the building. Oh no, no, no, no, _no!_ Allen was going out to lunch with Lavi and Lenalee today! Pure terror coursed through the whitette's veins. He did _not_ want to spend several _hours_ with these people. They were crazy! Every time he saw them, he got tackled, made a mess in a public area, and was left feeling dizzy. And that was only after _twenty minutes tops_ with the people! How the bloody hell was he gonna survive lunch with them? There... There was no way.

Allen considered ditching Lavi and Lenalee right then and there. If they never saw him, they couldn't drag him off to some unknown location to meet his certain doom. He could...sneak out the back door! Yeah! That was a good idea! But wait... he'd still have to go around front to get to his car... Oh, blast it. The whitette sighed, hanging his head in gloomy defeat. He might as well just get this over with...

Allen was immediately met with twin ecstatic greetings of "Allen!" as he trudged out of the building. Lavi ran over to him and swept him off his feet in a spinning hug, knocking the air out of already winded Allen. _And so it begins..._ he thought solemnly.

"So, you ready to go, li'l bud?" Lavi asked, finally returning the shorter boy to solid ground with a brilliant grin.

"As ready as I'll ever be..." said boy sighed.

Soon enough, the three youths had walked across the parking lot to a large orange pickup truck which, in Allen's opinion, was in highly questionable shape. The thing was beyond beat up. Small and large dents alike dotted the luminescent orange paint, which itself was scratched and chipped in several places as if someone had gone over the entire paint job with steel wool. Additionally, the side mirrors were crooked and cracked, and the tires, which seemed needlessly large to Allen, were worn out and stripped of their tread to the point where he wondered if the thing was even safe to drive. When he voiced this very concern, Lavi just laughed and patted the dinged up hood fondly, saying, "This baby's held out for eight years now under my care. Don't worry your pretty head."

This statement just made Allen stare at the redhead, one eyebrow peaked. "You're 23?"

"Nope, 21."

Allen stared harder. "Lavi, you only would've gotten your permit _six_ years ago at best."

The redhead tensed up before his grin turned into a sheepish smile. "W-Well, see, the thing about that—" he stuttered.

He was interrupted, however, by Lenalee, who whined, "C'mon, guys! I skipped breakfast, and I'm starving!" The three proceeded to pile into the pickup truck, which much to Allen's displeasure, was in similar shape inside as it was outside. The whitette carefully moved an old Hardees cup off the cracked grass green vinyl upholstered back seat with the tips of his forefinger and thumb and added it to the sea of trash littering the equally disgusting stained red carpet. After brushing several crumpled up receipts and empty chip bags as well as some stale crumbs from the dirty surface, Allen finally deemed it sanitary enough to sit on without contracting some sort of disease and eased into the seat. Lenalee climbed into the seat next to him, and Lavi settled in behind the steering wheel.

"So do you ever, you know, _clean_ in here?" Allen asked the red haired male, uneasily setting his feet down amongst the littered remnants of past fast food.

Lavi looked incredibly offended. "Hey! It gives 'er character! Like a worn out old book or something!"

"Yeah, well it _smells_ like one, too," Allen criticized, scrunching up his nose at the smell of what was most likely a mix of rotting paper and mold.

Lavi opened his mouth to retort, but upon Lenalee agreeing, "He's right, you know. It's rank in here," the redhead just pouted in defeat and started the ignition.

Just as Allen had more or less been dreadfully expecting based on his personality, Lavi drove like a _maniac._ Allen clung to whatever he could as the truck swerved speedily around traffic and drifted by corners without even slowing down. Horns were blaring everywhere, but all Allen could hear was his own heartbeat as he closed his eyes and hoped he wouldn't die. It was all the whitette could do not to scream when a speed bump nearly caused him to crack his skull on the ceiling. Lavi didn't even look fazed and continued grinning like a madman as he jerked the wheel left and right. _I think I'm gonna be sick..._ Allen thought, covering his mouth with one hand. God, he hated being around these people.

Suddenly, the pickup truck came to a screeching stop, the momentum of the abrupt halt sending Allen hurling forward into the back of the driver's seat with a loud yelp. _Yeah, I_ really _hate being around these people_ , he decided, his cheek pressed against the bright vinyl. His arms were sprawled on either side of the driver's seat, and his legs had somehow made it onto the seat so that they were vertically dangling in the air. He was wearing his _seatbelt_ , too.

All of a sudden, Allen felt his wrists being pulled around as if he were picking up a beach ball. "Coming onto me already, Allen?" Lavi teased, grinning at him in the rear view mirror as he pinned Allen's arms to his own chest in a hug. He smirked. "I mean, not that I blame you. I tend to have that effect on people, but I didn't think you swung that way. Oh well, I guess I've just gotten so mouth-wateringly sexy that I turn men gay at this point! It was only a matter of time until that happened, anyway." He chuckled haughtily. Allen looked up at him blankly. He wasn't sure whether to stare at the redhead or smack him. He settled on the latter.

Lavi yelped, more in surprise than pain, as Allen wrenched a hand free to deliver a sloppy blow under the older boy's chin. Said whitette smiled in false cheer, jerking his hands back and sitting up straight again. "You wish."

He prepared to get out of the truck so he could get this god forsaken lunch over with already when he noticed that they were in the parking lot of... a community center? His eyebrows furrowed in confusion. What were they doing there? Last time he'd checked, all these places offered were kids' swimming classes and unwanted comments from the lady at the front desk about the horrendous sin of holding hands. Lunch was not generally their forte.

Lenalee must have noticed Allen's confused expression as she explained, "Kanda's kendo classes get out early on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We're picking him up." Allen nodded slowly before his eyes widened. _Wait a second..._

Wasn't Kanda that _really_ irritable guy from the Pretzel Cafe the other day?

Surely enough, the front doors of the community center soon slammed open with enough force to finally shake Lavi out of the self-pitying stupor he'd been in on account of Allen's smack, and out strolled a familiar long-haired Japanese man with his ever present scowl. Allen gulped at the utter hatred gleaming in the older guy's dark eyes and shrunk back as close to the corner as he could. He was... kind of terrifying. _Maybe if I just stay silent, he won't talk to me..._ Allen hoped.

That plan quickly proved to be futile, however, as the second Kanda yanked open the door of the red pickup truck—Allen tried to ignore the fact that he slammed it forcefully into the car parked next to them without care, leaving what was almost definitely a prominent dent in its metallic blue surface—he narrowed his eyes at Allen and demanded, "What's the _moyashi_ doing here?" Allen furrowed his eyebrows. Moyashi? What did that mean?

"He's having lunch with us!" Lavi chirped, beaming brighter than the sun.

"No," the Japanese man declared bluntly, still glaring at Allen coldly. Said whitette just blinked at him in confusion. Did he just...kick him out of lunch? Normally, Allen would have been ecstatic—he _really_ didn't want to be here, after all—but the comment ignited a little spark of annoyance in him. How could someone be so... _rude?_

Lavi whined. "But _Yuuuuuuu!_ We unintentionally beat him up the other day! We have to make it up to him!"

"No we _don't!_ " Kanda snapped. "He dropped our damn food! _And stop calling me that!_ " Allen's eye twitched. _I wouldn't have dropped your stupid food if you hadn't chased a bloody redhead into me!_ he snapped in his head, but still remained silent.

"But it's Allen! He's _great!_ " Lavi defended.

Kanda glared daggers at the redhead. "As if! He's a pale little shrimp who broke his own stupid plates! How bad at a job can you _get?!_ " Allen gritted his teeth, clenching his fists. Oh, that was _it!_

However, before Allen could even inch toward the annoying Japanese male, Lenalee reached forward, tugging hard on his ear. "Kanda, stop being such a jerk! It's _your_ fault Lavi crashed into him anyway, so put a sock in it! Allen's coming and that's _final!_ " Allen expected Kanda to whirl around and scream at the Chinese girl but was surprised when he instead slumped down in his seat grouchily muttering something under his breath that sounded almost like ' _fine.'_ Allen blinked for a moment, wondering what had just happened, before shaking his head to himself, shrugging it off. Maybe Kanda didn't want to fight with a girl. _Misogynistic asshole._

After what felt like an hour but was proved by the clock on his phone to have only been five minutes of Lavi's life-threatening driving, the truck came to another screeching halt in another parking lot. Allen rubbed his forehead where he had once again been hurled into the back of the driver's seat, earning an apologetic smile from Lenalee and a smug smirk from Kanda, the latter of which he returned with a glare. He climbed out of the truck, unstable on his feet for a moment due dizziness from the ride, before turning around to find the casual, curved letters of the "Mellow Mushroom Pizza Bakers" sign above him. He then whirled around to glare at Lavi when said redhead threw his arm over his shoulder.

"You like pizza, right? Sure you do. Everyone likes pizza!" Lavi chirped, beaming.

Allen plucked the redhead's arm off of his shoulders as if pulling a foreign hair off of his shirt. "Sure, whatever." The four youths walked to the door and entered, Allen biting back his tongue when Kanda let it close in his face with a smirk, and soon enough they had all piled into a large booth. After they'd ordered their drinks, Allen couldn't help but look around the place. As he didn't go out in public recreationally a whole lot, this was his first time at Mellow Mushroom, and needless to say, it was a... rather odd place. The 60s theme was cool and all, but never before had Allen seen a restaurant with a Janis Joplin mermaid painted on the wall. Not to mention the grinning mushroom sculpture.

"This place sure is... druggy," Allen commented, staring at all the surreal art.

Lavi just grinned. "Yeah, man, that what makes it so cool! Wait..." the redhead paused before gaping at him in seeming realization. "Whoa, whoa, dude, you've never been to _Mellow Mushroom_ before?! Have you been living under a rock or something?"

Allen blushed in embarrassment. "No, I just haven't had a chance to come here yet!" he defended. "I only moved here two months ago."

"Really?" Lenalee asked, eyes widened with interest. "Well, I guess that explains why I hadn't seen you around until a few days ago. Where you from?"

Allen stared up in thought, holding his chin with his forefinger and thumb. "Hmm, well, I'm _originally_ from Britain, but after my foster father died when I was 8, I became under the care of a rather... _eccentric_ man, to say the least, and he moved around a lot for, uh, work reasons." _And to escape his trail of crippling debts_ , Allen thought dryly. He didn't say that last part out loud, though. He never knew when one of the many people Cross owed money to would just happen to be hanging around. "We bounced around a few places in Europe, chilled in India for awhile, stayed with one of my guardian's long string of lovers in China for a bit, and at some point ended up in the U.S. We traveled a lot here, too, but eventually we settled near Las Vegas and stayed there for the last two years or so of my time with him. Then as soon as I graduated high school, I hauled ass out of there, and here I am." The waitress had returned with their drinks about halfway through his story, and Allen sipped his Pepsi as the other three stared at him with varying degrees of shock. Even _Kanda_ was raising an eyebrow.

"Christ, kid, that's a lot," Lavi choked out at last before perking up in an instant. "But, dude, you're _British?_ That's _so_ cool! I've always wanted to befriend a Brit!"

"We are _not_ friends," Allen returned bluntly.

Lavi ignored him. "Well, I'm from the good Ole USA, Lenalee's from China, and Kanda's from Japan, though they both moved here when they were pretty young, so they don't remember a whole lot from then. Well, Kanda does, but he doesn't talk about it."

Said Japanese man stared at Allen daringly. "And I'm not going to, so don't even bother asking, _moyashi_."

Allen stared at him, the tingle of irritation returning, before looking to his left at Lavi questioningly. "By the way, he keeps calling me that...word. What does it mean? I never lived in Japan, so the language is basically Greek to me." _Though, actually, I think I speak more Greek than Japanese..._ he mused to himself.

Lavi just shrugged. "Sorry, dude, you're on your own there. Took me almost a year to figure out what _my_ insulting nickname meant, and that's only because he started using the English and Japanese versions interchangeably." Allen sighed. Guess he was hitting up Google Translate later...

The waitress returned to take their orders, and Lavi ordered 2 large pepperoni pizzas, briefly turning to Allen to make sure he wasn't, like, violently allergic to it or something, to which the whitette just shook his head. The chipper waitress wrote this down with a smile before turning to Kanda to ask if he wanted another water, since his was getting low.

"No. Get lost," he growled, glaring at the girl. She paled slightly before whimpering something like _'R-Right away...'_ and scurrying off.

Lenalee sighed. "Kanda, do you have to be a total ass to _everyone_ in the serving industry?"

"Yes," he responded, crossing his arms. "I have yet to meet a waiter who hasn't completely and utterly _pissed me off_." And just like that, the throbbing annoyance in Allen's temple returned.

Lenalee sighed exasperatedly. "She didn't even _do_ anything to you. She just asked if you wanted a refill!"

"Whatever." Kanda rolled his eyes. "She probably didn't even notice. Only complete idiots work minimum wage jobs like that anyways."

Allen's eye twitched irritably, finally fed up enough to speak. "Or, you know, people without a degree who can't enter a specialized profession yet," he all but spat through gritted teeth with as much restraint as he could manage. Unfortunately, Kanda seemed to take this as a challenge.

The dark-haired male narrowed his eyes slowly. "Then at least do your jobs right. It takes a brain the size of a peanut to work as a dumbass _waiter_ of all things. Why the fuck do you all fuck up nonstop? A fucking _donkey_ could serve better than any stupid waiter I've had."

Allen resisted the urge to explode at Kanda. " _Maybe_ ," he ground out, clenching his jaw, "if you _tried_ waiting tables, you'd know that the job becomes rather difficult due to self-entitled asshats who think they're better than everyone like _you._ "

Kanda froze, his face twitching in an odd display of expressions ranging from shock to anger to bloodlust. Although Lavi had been observing the entire exchange in silence up until this point, the look on Kanda's face seemed to be the push that made him feel the need to step in.

"A-A-Alright now, we're all friends here" Lavi stuttered, smiling nervously and holding his hands up. "No need to say something unnecessary."

But it was too late now. "Say something? Oh, _I'll_ say something," Kanda growled darkly. "I'll say that people wouldn't hate the goddamn _moyashi_ so much if he wasn't such an aggravating little _shrimp!_ "

"C'mon, Yuu—" Lavi attempted weakly, but was once again cut off.

"Oh? _I'm_ aggravating?" Allen shot back, finally losing his temper. "What's _aggravating_ is getting forced out to lunch with a foul-mannered prick like _you!_ " he yelled.

"You wanna _go_ , shortstack?!" Kanda shouted back. "I'll crush your little _moyashi_ body in one hand!"

"At least my _brain_ isn't little, unlike is clearly the case in _your_ head!"

"That's it! You're _dead!_ "

Allen and Kanda jumped to their feet and lunged at each other. However, before the two males could get into a full on fist fight that surely would've destroyed a good amount of the restaurant, they were stopped by twin smacks on the heads and a loud shout from Lenalee. " _Enough!_ I am not getting publicly shamed in yet _another_ restaurant because you people can't behave yourselves! I just want to eat some greasy pizza in peace. Is that too much to ask for? _No_ , it's _not!_ So either play nice, or _shut it!_ "

Allen's and Kanda's mouths snapped shut simultaneously, and they both shrunk back down in their seats. Allen gulped. Potentially violent assholes like Kanda, he could handle. But teenage girls? Now _they_ were terrifying. He drew the line of who he was willing to cross there.

Still, both he and Kanda glared at each other out of the corners of their eyes.

Lunch from that point on passed peacefully for the most part. Allen and Kanda stayed silent, and Lavi took over the conversation with mindless energetic chatter. In fact, said chatter was _so_ mindless that it was rather annoying. By the time the pizzas came out, the mixture of Kanda's glares and Lavi's idiotic blabbering had Allen quite irritable.

"So like," Lavi started again with his mouth full of pizza before swallowing and continuing, "do you think narwhals could possibly be the descendants of aquatic unicorns? Because like, I've been thinking about this for a long time, and what if narwhals were the result of whales mating with unicorns who'd moved into the water to avoid the dinosaurs? I mean, it makes sense! Plus, that could explain why the unicorns went extinct: After they gave birth to their narwhal offspring, they all drowned! This could be a scientific breakthrough!"

"The only breakthrough here is going to be my fist breaking through your face if you don't shut the fuck up, rabbit," Kanda growled viciously.

Lavi apparently had the ability to shut out any and all criticisms to his behavior, however, as he didn't even seem to notice the threat. "Or maybe, they all got eaten by a dinosaur! A _big_ dinosaur! Oh, and what if the unicorns' magical rainbow powers transported that dinosaur to Loch Ness and gave it the power of eternal youth, allowing it to live forever as the Loch Ness Monster?! My god, this is the most genius thing I've ever come up with!"

Both Allen and Lenalee groaned, sinking their faces into the palms of their hands. That was quite possibly the _stupidest_ thing Lavi had ever come up with.

The chatter continued as Allen ate his pizza with a knife and fork to avoid getting grease on his gloves, ignoring the smartass comment Kanda made about the method of consumption. The whitette downed four slices like it was nothing, but even after that, Lavi was _still_ talking.

"I'm just saying, I think it's unfair that we treat pumpkins like that!" Lavi reasoned about as unreasonably as humanly possible. "There they are, just sittin' on the ground minding their own business, and suddenly they're getting shipped to stores against their will, put on display like worthless merchandise, and getting horrendously mutilated by random people! It's abominable!" Allen pinched the bridge of his nose in annoyance. Did he _ever_ shut up?

"And don't even get me _started_ on our mistreatment of piñatas!"

"Lavi, if I have to hear one more idiotic comment out of your mouth, I am going to punch you in the bloody neck," Allen said at last, his temper short. However, instead of taking head to this threat, Lavi began to gush.

"Oh my god! You just said something _British!_ That was so _awesome!_ " Lavi exclaimed, stars in his eye.

He started coughing, however, as Allen delivered the promised blow to Lavi's throat.

Silence (finally) surrounded the consumption of the rest of pizza, and by the time they were ready to pay, Allen was almost ready to believe it would stay that way: quiet, peaceful, and easy. The key word was _almost_.

Suddenly, Allen felt a large hand grasp his thigh and let out a yelp. Instinctively, he grabbed said hand and tried to pull it off of his leg, but it wouldn't give. He looked down at the thing and followed the arm it was attached to up to find Lavi looking at him with a... strange look in his eye. Allen gulped. _Oh god. He's going to rape me._ The whitette had imagined a variety of scenarios in which he would lose his virginity, but dear god, molested by a stranger at Mellow Mushroom was _not_ one of them. Was this why Lavi had invited him out to eat? The redhead had surely tried to kill him a number of times already. Maybe Allen's persistent desire to live had earned him this? Oh god. This was his own fault. He was going to get molested in public all because he wouldn't just die already. He was going to be doomed to live with this all his life. He'd become distraught. He'd... He'd... _start a grunge blog on Tumblr!_

Wait, _what?_

Allen shook himself out of it. Did he seriously just jump to conclusions like that? He wanted to facepalm himself. This was _Lavi_ he was talking about here! Sure, any other stranger touching his thigh would most likely result in rape, but with Lavi? This could mean anything from him suggesting they get dessert to him dragging Allen off to go meet the My-Little-Ponies of Equestria. There was honestly no telling. He sighed, ignoring the tightening of the grip on his thigh. All he could do was wait and see...

Lavi, however, seemed to take the way Allen's face relaxed in defeat as consent and abruptly stood up to chirp, "Allen and I have to use the bathroom!"

"Wait, wha—?" Allen didn't even get to finish his confused question as he was grabbed by the wrist and dragged off toward the men's restroom. He paled.

 _I take it back. He's going to rape me._

After passing a strange mural of Alice in Wonderland watching the Beatles have a tea party with the white rabbit, Allen was pulled into the restroom and promptly shoved against a wall by the shoulders. However, instead of being molested like he'd expected, the whitette was instead greeted with the enthusiastic grin of Lavi beaming down on him as said redhead exclaimed, "Allen! Let's play the golf machine!"

Wait, what?

Allen stared at Lavi dumbfoundedly for several moments before voicing this very concern. "What?"

"The golf machine!" Lavi repeated enthusiastically. "You know? Those arcade golf games with the little white ball that you shove forward with your hand to do a swing? They have one here! And it's two player! Let's do it!"

Allen cringed and rubbed his ear in slight annoyance at Lavi's needlessly loud shouting. "And _why_ did you have to drag me to the bathroom like some creeper to tell me this?" the whitette asked irritably.

Lavi froze for a second before grinning sheepishy. "Well, ya' see, Lenalee wouldn't have let us play it..."

Allen stared at the redhead hard. "And _why_ is that?"

Lavi shook his head rapidly, his normal beaming expression returning. "Doesn't matter! We just gotta ninja our way over to the game machines by the door so Lenalee and Kanda don't see us!"

"No," Allen declared bluntly.

"C'mooooon," Lavi whined. "It'll be fun! Plus, if we go over there, there's this really cool gumball machine with, like, the best gum ever!"

Allen paused. Best gum ever? He had to admit, food-related things such as candy and gum were a bit of a bias of his. Not to mention that gum was _hella_ good right after eating. Plus, Lenalee had already declared that she would pay for lunch...

"Okay, why the bloody hell not?" Allen agreed at last.

Lavi squealed in excitement before grabbing Allen by the hand and pulling him out of the bathroom, earning a wide-eyed stare from some guy who seemed to misinterpret what two males holding hands as they left the bathroom meant. It was all Allen could do to keep quiet as Lavi yanked him from hiding place to hiding place with what were apparently "ninja moves." The shorter boy barely managed to keep his face from slamming into the ground when Lavi did some sort of somersault maneuver behind a row of booths whilst still holding Allen's hand. By the time the two reached the damn arcade machines, Allen was dizzy.

"I think... I would just like... to go home now, everybody..." Allen groaned, swaying slightly in place and holding his cheek where it had been smacked into the weird wooden mushroom statue.

"Nope! You can't back out now!" Lavi chirped, grinning down at him almost devilishly. He pulled two quarters out of his pocket and slipped them into the golf machine before selecting the '2 Players' setting and asking Allen if he cared who went first, to which the whitette replied with a shake of his head. Lavi struck some utterly ridiculous stance and spun the white spherical control forward with a great deal of what Allen almost considered 'flamboyance.' After doing a small victory dance when his shot did well, he turned to Allen. "Okay, dude, you're up!"

Allen sighed and stepped up to the machine, spinning the ball without enthusiasm and scoring a shot far behind Lavi. "So what exactly is the point of this?" he asked monotonously.

"Because it's fun!" Lavi replied. "Now, step aside! I'm about to take this puppy home!" The redhead positioned himself over the machine cockily, a smug smirk on his face. "Watch and learn, my dear newbie." Lavi spun the ball with an overwhelming amount of confidence.

He looked like his soul left him when it landed in the water.

Allen couldn't help but laugh at the redhead's expense as he sulked. All the bragging sure took him far, huh? However, Lavi seemed to take this laughter as a challenge and looked up at Allen with that familiar gleam in his eye. "Mock me, huh? You think you can do much better?" he all but taunted, grinning slightly.

Allen smirked in response. "I _know_ I can."

And just like that, the two boys were thrown into a competitive match for the champion. Although he'd only originally intended to prove a point to the smug redhead, Allen soon found himself lost in the heat of the game and—Dare he admit it?—was having _fun_. Allen won the first hole with ease after Lavi sank his ball, and Lavi won the second at a landslide with both participants in the green. Now it was down to the third and final hole, which would determine who won the game.

"You're crazy if you think you're going to beat the Red Thunder, Allen," Lavi asserted when it was once again Allen's turn, grinning at the shorter boy determinedly.

Allen grinned back in reply. "Watch me." He positioned himself over the machine and spun the ball powerfully, sending it soaring over the course and rolling just onto the edge of the green. He smirked at Lavi. This game was _his_ now!

Lavi, however, seemed to think different. He chuckled darkly, staring at Allen with that gleam in his eye that, had said whitette not been caught up in the competitiveness of the moment, would have sent chills down Allen's spine. "Oh, you're in for it now!" He sashayed to the machine and hit a battle stance. "You're about to experience a technique of old. A move once used to combat the Ancient Romans and defeat the best of the best in Olympic Golf. A hit that will send this ball over the green of defeat and right into the hole!" He leaned over the machine, tense with concentration, yet still grinning smugly. "Get ready." He threw his arm back so far, Allen had to step back so it wouldn't hit him in the face. "Time for the secret attack move of the Red Thunder..." He flung his arm forward with as much force as he could humanly muster as well as some Allen thought seemed supernatural. " _Lightning Putt!_ " He struck the ball with such force that it spun uncontrollably. The ball in the game flew higher than Allen had yet seen and soared down toward the green, possibly to make the shot that Lavi had promised, but neither male would ever know who won the game.

Lavi's swing was so hard, his hand punched straight through the screen.

Allen and Lavi gaped at the golf machine, the screen of which was now pitch black and shattered around Lavi's fist. Silence surrounded them for several moments before Allen spoke up.

"Lavi... Did you just—?"

"Yeah. Yeah, li'l bud, I just did."

An ever-so-familiar shout sounded from behind them. "What on earth—Damn it, Lavi, _again?!_ " The two by the machine turned to find a furious Lenalee and a more or less amused Kanda standing by the (luckily) abandoned host desk.

Allen turned to stare at Lavi. "This has happened before?"

The redhead chuckled uneasily. "Well, there's a reason we can't go to Pizza Hut anymore..."

Now Allen understood why Lenalee wouldn't have let them play if she'd known.

Lavi scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. "Well, we should probably run now. Don't wanna get banned here, too. C'mon, everybody, to the LaviMobile!" All four youths made a run for the door—Allen pausing briefly to get one of gumballs from the machine—and sprinted to the hideous orange pickup truck before piling into the thing and speeding away with a loud screech.

The four panted heavily, clinging to various parts of the truck to remain steady despite Lavi's reckless driving. "Well," Allen huffed after several silent moments. "That was... something."

Lenalee nodded, her mouth gaping with heavy breaths. "You get used to it."

"So now what?" Allen asked.

Lavi replied this time, grinning. "Now we go for ice cream!"

Allen wasn't sure whether to groan or grin back.

* * *

Allen flopped down on his bed exhaustedly, staring up at the ceiling. He was finally home to stay after a long day. Other than some odd conversations and Lavi ordering a seven scoop ice scream cone, Baskin Robbins with Lavi, Lenalee, and Kanda was relatively normal, and now Allen was home after 5 hours of work at The Pretzel Cafe. Needless to say, he was pretty wiped. He closed his eyes. Now he was ready to just go to bed and—

His phone went off.

Allen blinked is eyes open once more and pulled his phone out. _What on earth...?_ He checked the thing to see what it was and found a notification form Tumblr. He had a DM from Rabi. Smiling, Allen unlocked the phone and opened Tumblr.

 _hammer-time: Heyyyyy Allen~! ;D_

Allen chucked and typed a response.

 _xXcrown-clownXx: What's up, Rabi? c:_

 _hammer-time: "Up" is relative. If you're asking what's going on, tho, EVRYTHINGGGG! I've had an amazing day! Wbu? :3_

 _xXcrown-clownXx: Today was... interesting to say the least. You know how I told you that weird guy was following me around yesterday? Yeah, I had lunch with him today. It was eventful, to say the least._

 _hammer-time: What, that guy's STILL bothering you? What a weirdo! I'll tell ya what, if he keeps bugging you, tell him your friend Rabi's coming over to kick his ass! :D_

Allen snorted.

 _xXcrown-clownXx: X'D I assure you, I can handle him myself._

 _hammer-time: If you say so, but these kinds of guys can be really creepy. One second, they're harmless, and the next, you're chained to a moldy loveseat in the basement getting your kidney harvested with a rusty handsaw 0_0 Just remember my offer when the guy comes, like, climbing through your window at 3am or something_

 _xXcrown-clownXx: *snorts* Will do XD But enough about me, how was your day? You seem awful hype. :3_

 _hammer-time: Oh yea! Well ya know how I told you I met that stubborn dude who seemed hella cool but was too shy to immediately become friends?_

 _xXcrown-clownXx: Yeah? Seemed like a real ass if you ask me. Who could be so rude as to resist YOUR charm? ;P_

 _hammer-time: Ah! A maiden blush graces my cheeks! Oh, how thou flatters me~! My heart's going to burst out of my chest one of these days. What are you going to tell our shippers then, huh? ;P_

 _xXcrown-clownXx: I'll tell them I killed you because you cheated on me :3_

 _hammer-time: WHOA, harsh! You wound me! ;c I'll never recover! D'X_

 _xXcrown-clownXx: Yeah, yeah XD Anyways, what about the shy guy?_

 _hammer-time: Oh yea! Well, I managed to get him to come out of his shell at last today. He seemed to be having fun with me and my other besties. I think I did it! I think I made a new friend! :D_

 _xXcrown-clownXx: That's great, Rabi! :D_

 _hammer-time: Yea! Well I'm sorry to be abrupt, but I have to go D: I have to get up early tomorrow. Gnight, Allen~! ;*_

 _xXcrown-clownXx: Goodnight, Rabi XD_

Allen locked his phone and stared the ceiling again, smiling this time. Rabi was so great. The whitette always felt really happy when he talked to the older male for some reason. He made Allen feel like he'd just chugged a monster at Disneyland. It was great.

Allen rolled over in bed, thinking about the conversation. Lavi made a new friend, huh? That was great. He wondered if he'd make some here anytime soon. He enjoyed being alone and all, and staying home on Tumblr was a favorite pastime of his, but that didn't mean he didn't _sometimes_ miss hanging out with his friends back in Las Vegas. He could use _some_ friends that didn't live online.

 _Ah, whatever._

Suddenly, however, his mind switched gears to lunch earlier that day. He recalled Lavi's ridiculous rambling, how much he wanted to smack the redhead when he broke the golf machine, and how the gumball wasn't nearly as good as Lavi had promised. He remembered how completely and utterly irritating Lavi had been the entire time. As he closed his eyes, he smiled. And most of all, he remembered how much fun he'd had around the red haired male.

 _Maybe I made a friend, too._

* * *

 **Shaberu-chan: FEKIN HELL I'M SO SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG DX Believe it or not, I actually have excuses. See, like ¾ of this chapter was done early last week, so I was all like "Okay! I'll just finish this up real quick tomorrow!" right? EXCEPT CRAP KEPT COMING UP DX On Tuesday, my family wanted to watch a movie, on Wednesday I had Costuming, on Thursday my dad forgot to pick me up from school (I'm gonna cry why dad why), on Friday I was too exhausted to write anything and fell asleep, on Saturday my grandma took me out for linner and told me some lies about my mom that briefly fucked me up (yikes this whole week has been yikes e.e), and yesterday I actually just had WB and watched Steven Universe and Adventure Time all day. SO HERE WE ARE TODAY! It's 9:12 and I'm hella tired and I still gotta edit this, so yeh. But first, I have a few things to say about this chapter: 1) I am currently in AP World History and my teacher posts all of his articles online so big thanks to the most complete, correct, and complex man out there for the Punic Wars info in this chapter, 2) Allen mentions** **Robogeisha** **. That is a terrible movie and you should go watch it immediately, 3) Apparently Mellow Mushroom doesn't have locations everywhere? I live in Tennessee and I honestly did not realize that a lot of Mellow Mushrooms are in the South. And I looked it up on Google Images. Most Mellow Mushroom restaurants don't look as druggy as the one I described XD HOWEVER, for the sake of my laziness to do real research, everything I described in the Mellow Mushroom Lavi and Allen went to was directly from my memory of the one near me, 4) When Allen says "I think... I would just like... to go home now, everybody..." I was referencing "Hedgehog the Sonic" on Youtube. Feel free to imagine it in that voice because I sure as hell did X'D ANYWAYS, this A/N is _way_ too long, so Allen? Lavi? You each ****once again** **get one word. GO!  
** **Allen: Christ e.e  
** **Lavi: Fun :3  
** **Shaberu-chan: That'll do~ OKAY, thanks to Usagi-Twins (SAME THO Allen is so wasteful smh), Ryuakilover (Lavi's cray okay XD It just gets worse in upcoming chapters just you wait), Vongolatte (He does indeed :3 He grabs his gloves on his way out the door, though it only implies him putting them on. YES SOMEONE CAUGHT THE EXORCISM JOKE! WOO! :D Awe nee-chan thou flattereth me~ ;w; *huggles*), and Deugemia (THANKS SO MUCH FAM~!) for reviewing as well as to everyone who favorited/followed (We're almost at 30 follows o_o *faints*), and please remember to R &R! See ya next time~ *throws confetti bomb at the ground***


	5. Chapter 5

**Shaberu-chan: These EndNotes are getting seriously ridiculous. Let's just disclaim this already. Lenalee? ;w;"  
Lenalee: *sweat drops* Shaberu-chan does not own DGM or Darude's "Sandstorm."**

* * *

However, as ideas so often did when thought up in the later hours, all thoughts of friendship had completely disappeared from Allen's mind by the time he awoke.

The whitette had been pretty wiped from the previous day's activities, and as a result, he had slept like a rock. Similarly, he _felt_ like a rock when he woke up. Even after downing two cups of scalding coffee before class, Allen still felt like he was walking through syrup. He may have just skipped class or today and gone back to sleep, but somewhere in the deep recesses of his mind, a fuzzy voice told him skipping would not be in his best interest as a somewhat slow-learning community college student who already had to make up a day of history notes due to spacing out. Oh yeah, it was _logic_. And so, Allen managed to drag himself to Black Order Community College with far less than a skip in his step and trudged to the furthest seat from the board. He could already tell this was going to be a long two hours.

Allen nailed that one right on the head. He had some sort of Algebra 101 class today, but as this was a community college, it was more introductory essentials that anything. Nothing he hadn't learned in high school, that's for sure. He almost wanted to curse himself for even coming to class today. This was all review! _Blast it, I could've gone back to sleep._ Nevertheless, here he was now, ignoring the rambling lecture about exponents, and considering that they were already a solid 45 minutes into the lesson, he couldn't very well just get up and leave. That coupled with the fact that the coffee was _just now_ starting to kick in and thus preventing Allen from napping, the whitette was left with no other option than to just sit there and tough it out.

… Or better yet...

After glancing around the room to make certain no one was paying attention to him (Nobody was. The student body avoided the corner he was in like the plague.), Allen slipped his phone out from his pocket, turned down the brightness, and unlocked it under the table. As long as he wasn't going to be learning anything for the next hour and fifteen minutes, he might as well do something productive with his time: Blogging. Soon enough, Allen was engrossed in scrolling through his dash, liking and reblogging nonstop as he went. Geez, he'd never realized just how good the feed was when he was too busy to be online. And now that he had so many more followers, he felt all the more confident in reblogging it all. Just as he made post after post, notifications began to rapidly pop up. He couldn't help but smile to himself. After all, only a week ago, Allen would've been lucky to get maybe one or two notes per reblog. Yet now, here he was practically expecting an entire screen full of notifications at his very whim! And all because of a dumb text post and a comedic boy named Rabi.

Speaking of Rabi...

Allen's face lit up when a DM notification appeared on the screen. Normally, he would've avoided making such a dramatic expression in public (especially when he was trying not to be distracting), but he couldn't deny enjoying the warm feeling that spread through his chest whenever one of those notifications appeared. Smiling, he opened the conversation. Surely enough, it was from the comedian himself.

 _hammer-time: MY PRINCE! Thou art online to saveth me from this harsh, cruel world that pains me so! *throws hand to forehead dramatically*_

Allen chuckled to himself and typed his response.

 _xXcrown-clownXx: *chuckles* Indeed I am. What is wrong, exactly? XD_

 _hammer-time: OH, ALLEN, YOU SHOULD SEE ME RN! My heart is frozen in queue, and my soul has been cast into the depths of purgatory to wait eternally as my body wastes away in this unforgiving environment by she whom I thought I could trust most! D'X_

 _xXcrown-clownXx: So, in other words, you're waiting for your friend and you're bored? XD_

 _hammer-time: That's about the gist of it. What's up? :3_

 _xXcrown-clownXx: Nothing really. I'm in Algebra 101 right now, and one more minute of droning review was gonna send me into a coma. So I got on tumblr XD_

 _hammer-time: Oh, man, I don't blame ya! Community college math is the worst! I can't even tell ya how many times the professor had to throw an eraser at me to wake me up *shudders*_

 _xXcrown-clownXx: *snorts* Why does that not surprise me? ;P_

 _hammer-time: AH! How thou woundeth me! D; But fr, I swear the math professors do it on purpose. How else would EVERY one of them manage to be /that/ boring? It's gotta be a conspiracy or something! 0_0 Oh shit man, I think I'm onto something! What if college math professors, like, meet at some secret lair of Algebra 101 or something? Dude what if there's some, like, secret message encoded in their boring lectures? They could be trying to brainwash us or something! Oh shit dude, THEY COULD BE TRYING TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD WITH AN ARMY OF OBLIVIOUS COLLEGE STUDENTS! O_O_

It took every ounce of restraint Allen had not to howl in laughter, for that would surely call a huge amount of unwanted attention to his being and get him in trouble. Still, the whitette couldn't help but chuckle silently at the rant. This wasn't the first time Rabi had gone on a tirade about ridiculous conspiracy theories the likes of which onlyhe could really come up with. Allen's smile faltered slightly. Well, maybe he and _on_ e other person. Allen shuddered at the memory of Lavi's crazy rambling about narwhals and the Loch Ness Monster. The redhead's overzealous ranting was incredibly headache-inducing, especially since he for some godforsaken reason felt the need to quite literally _yell_ everything he said directly into Allen's eardrum. The whitette would rather crash cymbals into either ear and make a Deaf Allen Sandwich than listen to another one of Lavi's stupid conspiracy theories. They were _terrible._ But despite how much Allen loathed the annoying babbling from Lavi, when Rabi did it... It was just _different._ _S_ omething about Rabi erased any irritation that may have otherwise consumed Allen's brain at such ridiculous rants. In fact, not only did his Internet friend not annoy him with his theories, but Allen found that he even _enjoyed_ the ludicrous babbling. When Rabi did it, it was charming in a comical way and amused Allen to no end. He loved that about Rabi. Even when he was acting like an obnoxious five-year-old, the older male still managed to make him smile like an idiot. That ability was what really made Rabi... Well, _Rabi._ In fact, the whitette gushed about his friend so much that if Allen had been, say, a teenage girl who read too much FanFiction, he probably would've been squealing something akin to "Senpai!" at the very thought of the older blogger. He shuddered. _Thank god he was 18 and male!_

 _xXcrown-clownXx: *wheezing* XD_

 _hammer-time: Ohoho, you may mock me now, but you'll see! You'll /all/ see when the Secret Order of Algebra Professors rises up and enslaves the nation! And what will you do then, huh? You'll come crawling to me, begging me to save you from S.O.A.P. with my powers of mathematically invincible sexiliciousness, but see if I help you then! Just you see! o^o_

 _xXcrown-clownXx: *dies* X'D_

 _hammer-time: WHAT?! NOOOOO! D'X DON'T DIE, MY DEAREST LOVE! I WAS ONLY JOKING!_

 _xXcrown-clownXx: *dead* XP_

 _hammer-time: NOOOOOOOOOO! WHAT HAVE I /DONE/? D': I'VE KILLED HIM! I'VE KILLED MY TUMBLR LOVER! *collapses to knees* WHO WILL BE THE FANGIRLS' DREAM OTP BOTTOM NOOOOOW? D'X_

 _xXcrown-clownXx: HEY, who said I was the bottom?!_

 _hammer-time: Oh, you're alive! :3 We're good then~_

 _xXcrown-clownXx: DON'T AVOID THE QUESTION!_

 _hammer-time: Oops, gotta go! My friend just walked out! Byyyyye, Allen~! ;D *blows a kiss*_

 _xXcrown-clownXx: YOU PRICK!_

Despite the aggressive curse, Allen was chuckling to himself in amusement. As he always did, Rabi left Allen with a smile and a good mood. Honestly, if the older male hadn't needed to go, Allen would've been perfectly content to sit there DMing him for hours. Well, that and if the masses of students around him weren't all gathering their things and exiting the place. Allen checked the time. _Huh, 10:45._ The corners of his lips twitched up again. Rabi really did have a way of passing the time enjoyably.

Gathering his things, Allen followed the masses of students and exited the building with a grin on his face. Despite the sucky start to it, this day was really looking up to be an awesome one. After all, it was Wednesday, one of the three days a week (along with Friday and Saturday) that Allen didn't have work in the evening. He was all set to just go home and chill. _Finally,_ he couldn't help but think. After three days of exhausting encounters with Lavi and his band of insane misfits, Allen was seriously in need of some downtime. He honestly just wanted to be _alone_ for a bit. Or maybe forever, because "alone" meant alone with Tumblr, and alone with Tumblr meant alone with newfound Internet fame, his grammatically challenged best friend, and best of all, _Rabi._ Needless to say, Allen couldn't _wait_ —

"ALLEN!"

Oh, god _damn_ it.

Allen's cheerful demeanor dissipated in an instant as he slowly turned around to face the red-haired bane of his existence who, surely enough, was currently bounding toward him with his favorite lady friend following close behind. Allen released a low sigh of exasperation as Lavi and Lenalee slowed to a halt in front of him, both beaming enthusiastically.

" _What?_ " Allen hissed in annoyance.

Lavi frowned at him in a mockingly chastising manner. "Awe, c'mon, don't be like that! We're all friends here!"

"We are _not_ friends."

Lavi's face took on a theatrical mixture of shock, disappointment, and offense, all of which seemed incredibly comedic to Allen. "Awe, _what?_ You're _still_ in denial? C'mon, Allen, I thought we finally got somewhere yesterday!" he whined, throwing his head back in mock exasperation. Allen just rolled his eyes.

"So what do you want exactly?" he asked impatiently, wanting to hurry up and get this conversation over with. After all, he was _really_ looking forward to his afternoon of solitude. The fact that such blissful times were so close ahead of him made this tedious encounter all the more annoying, hence his irritability. Well, that and the fact that Lavi was really loud.

Lavi perked up suddenly, immediately returning to his usual hyperactive, grinning self. "We're going on an adventure!" he announced, standing proudly with his hands on his hips.

Allen stared at him for a long moment before bluntly saying, "No," and turning heel to walk away from the other two youths. He should have known better than to think they'd give up that easily, though.

"Awe, _c'mon,_ Allen!" Lavi whined, jogging to keep up with Allen's brisk walking. "Quit being such a meanie! We had fun yesterday, didn't we?"

Allen didn't slow in the slightest. "I went out with you guys yesterday because I stupidly promised I would, and I don't go back on my word. Now I have fulfilled my promise. I am _not_ obligated to spend any more time with you crazy people!"

"Hey!" Lenalee interjected from behind the two men, offended.

Lavi, however, clearly wasn't going to take 'No' for an answer. "But we still forgot to pay you back for the plates and the shirt! That's why we went out in the first place, isn't it? Surely you're obligated to reclaim the debt?" the redhead insisted.

"The shirt was literally only ten bucks, and my coworkers already bought me a new one. I don't need the money," Allen rebutted.

Lavi groaned in exasperation. "My _god_ , will you just come with us, already? Why ya' gotta be so damn stubborn?"

Allen looked into Lavi's eye defiantly. _Ohhh no._ No. He was not going to get talked into an outing with them that easily. "I am not going with you. I do not need to go. I do not _want_ to go. I just want to go home, eat some food, and take a nap. _Alone_. You hear any part of that that screams 'ridiculous adventure with crazy people'? No. So I am _not_ going, and that is _final!_ " Allen declared definitively before speeding up his walk away from the redhead. He more or less voluntarily smirked when an entire ten seconds managed to pass without a word of protest. He felt oddly accomplished to have finally gotten his point across to the unrelenting force of nature that was Lavi. After all, this was, what, his fourth argument with the guy? The redhead was a force to be reckoned with, and Allen had lost the first three. He felt like a victor to finally have the last word. He felt like—

"Well, too bad, you're going!"

Wait, _what?_

Allen yelped as two tan arms grabbed around either side of him, lifting him into the air and throwing him over Lavi's shoulder. The whitette immediately began to thrash and screech.

"PUT ME THE HELL DOWN THIS _INSTANT!_ " he demanded, glaring malevolently down at the redhead who held him over one shoulder like a sack of potatoes as if it were nothing.

"No can do! You insisted on doing this the hard way!" Lavi chirped up at Allen with an amused grin as he, a panicking yet giggling Lenalee, and an _incredibly_ unwilling Allen made their way across the parking lot to Lavi's hideously orange pickup truck. The redhead just about threw Allen into the back seat and forcefully buckled him in, all whilst the whitette continued to kick and scream. This attracted many a concerned stare from nearby college students, all of who, much to Allen's misfortune, seemed to decide it was in their best interests not to get involved. Once the squirming male was securely strapped in, Lavi pushed the door shut quickly, and Allen tried furiously to open the door. Child Safety Lock. _Fuck!_

Ignoring the shrilly screamed curses from the shortest of the truck's occupants, Lavi and Lenalee slid into their respective seats with cheerful smiles and pulled out of the parking lot. "I COULD CALL THE COPS, YOU KNOW!" Allen hollered. "THIS IS KIDNAPPING!"

Lavi laughed amusedly as if the whole ordeal were nothing more than a funny joke, not at all affected by his unwilling companion's threats. "Yeah, okay. Sure. You do that. You're _totally_ not too lazy to file a charge against us. I _totally_ believe that." Allen glared at him, but pouted rather than defending himself. He begrudgingly had to admit Lavi was right on that one. Damn the redhead for noticing his laziness!

After a few harsh blows to the head on account of Lavi's madman driving, Allen finally calmed down (whether this was of his own accord or due to brain trauma, he wasn't too sure) and stopped trying to devise a clever plan to escape his kidnappers. After all, he was already a solid twenty minutes into _today's_ insane outing. It was really too late to turn back now, at least unscathed.

With a sigh, Allen finally asked, "So _where_ are we going, exactly?"

Lavi smirked victoriously at Allen's calm tone and grinned at the younger male in the rear view mirror. "We're going to play mini golf!" he exclaimed excitedly.

Allen gave him a deadpan expression. "You kidnapped me to play _mini golf?_ "

Lenalee, who the whitette still couldn't believe had consented to all of this without a word of protest considering that she was about as close to a voice of _reason_ as it got with this group, smiled at him largely on his right. "Yep!"

Allen wanted to smack a palm into his face. Why did this shit always have to happen to him? For Christ's sake, all he wanted was to go _home,_ and yet despite his protests, he'd somehow gotten dragged on yet _another_ most likely exhausting adventure ( _Lavi: 4, Allen: 0_ ). What unearthly force did he offend to deserve this? Apparently the same one that gave life to the reasonless, energetic, persistent, annoying, _utterly mental_ force of nature by the name of _Lavi freaking Bookman!_

Allen groaned, covering his face with his hands as if awaiting utter doom. This was gonna be a long day.

After another fifteen minutes or so of driving and clinging on for dear life, Allen had to ask, "Dear god, how far away _is_ this place?"

"Probably about another... twenty minutes, I'd say?" Lenalee responded, looking up in thought.

Allen stared at her. "You guys are driving me an _hour_ away for mini golf?"

"Yes?"

"How do you guys even know I don't have work?" he asked incredulously.

Lavi chimed in on this one. "We went in and asked your boss about your schedule. I must say, I'm pretty disappointed in you for lying about working to get out of lunch with us on Monday. For shame," he scolded half-jokingly, wagging his finger with a smirk. Allen gulped. _Dear lord. He's_ really _committed to destroying my sanity_ , Allen thought with a uneasy shudder. This was a bit creepy.

Deciding to change the topic into something a little _less_ unnerving, Allen went on to ask, "And what about Douchey McBitchface? Where's he at?"

Lenalee furrowed her eyebrows. "Douchey Mc— _Are you talking about Kanda?"_ Lavi _howled_ with laughter, slamming his hand repeatedly against the dashboard and throwing his forehead down onto the steering wheel. This caused the truck to briefly swerve off of the road, much to Allen's and Lenalee's horrors, but after being nearly deafened by twin screams, Lavi managed to get the vehicle back on course.

Once everyone had caught their breaths, Lavi answered Allen's question. "Yuu's kendo class doesn't get out until twelve today. He's gonna meet us there." Allen briefly glanced at his phone. It was only 11:35. He couldn't help but sigh silently in relief. He had a good hour and a half to prepare for the creative string of insults _today_ would surely bring.

When the pickup truck at last came to a haphazard park, Allen wasted no time scanning his surroundings until he found the sign. ' _Ripley's Circus Mini Golf and Mirror Maze!_ ' His eye twitched. The nearest Ripley's attraction was _at least_ ninety minutes from where they lived, and they'd arrived in just under an hour. _God damn it, Lavi._

"So, do you want to wait for Kanda or go ahead and play a round?" Lenalee asked her two male companions as the three walked to the building. It wasn't too crowded for a tourist attraction, but there were still enough people to make a considerable line.

Allen just shrugged (He didn't really care either way; Neither option was particularly appealing to him), but Lavi exclaimed, " _Of course_ we're not waiting for him! Whoever wins the most games gets an ice cream cone, and you bet your tiny ass that I'm not passing up the opportunity to get a head start!" So it seemed that Lavi was just as competitive in actual golf as he was in arcade golf. Allen just hoped that this wouldn't result in another "Lightning Putt" incident like it had yesterday. The whitette had to admit, this place _did_ seem pretty fun, and it would kinda suck if he got banned from it forever.

Lenalee bit the inside of her cheek a tad vexedly (Allen got the sneaking suspicion that this was at least in part the result of Lavi's "tiny ass" comment), but agreed nonetheless. It appeared that she had no problem with throwing her Japanese friend under the bus, either. Allen snickered. _Serves the asshole right_.

The line moved pretty quickly much to the relief of Allen, who was half expecting to get dragged off somewhere ridiculous by an impatient Lavi, and soon enough, the three were set with score cards and clubs, ready to pick out their balls. The golf balls were all bright neon in color, Allen noticed with only slight contempt. He really preferred darker shades. He settled for blue.

However, as the three young adults made their way into the course, Allen realized why all the balls were so bright. This place was freakin' _black lit!_ All around him, circus-themed decorations glowed like a luminescent carnival, starting with fake ring stands run by cartoon people near the entrance to the course and transforming into colorfully patterned animals and clowns in the swing of performance as the holes turned corners past Allen's field of vision. He could feel his mouth hanging open like a little kid, not that he really blame himself for that. The circus theme was slightly nostalgic to Allen (some pretty vivid childhood memories always tended to come to mind at the mention of clowns for reasons he preferred not to think about), but he was nonetheless awed. He had to admit... _This place was pretty cool._

Lavi must have noticed Allen's gaping expression, as when the whitette finally turned to look at him, the redhead was grinning smugly. All feelings of wonder were immediately wiped from Allen's expression as he glared indignantly at the taller male. He bit the inside of his cheek, mentally cursing himself for letting his wonder at the decorations overwhelm him. He would _not_ have fun with this lunatic! Absolutely not! This was torturous, horrible, and irritating! No enjoyment would come from this, no Siree!

Nah, Allen wasn't stubborn. Not _at all._

Two holes went by, and Allen stood by this notion. He decided that he was _not_ enjoying himself, even when a smirk of victory tugged at his lips as his ball rolled into the first hole before anyone else's. He was _not_ having fun when he started laughing at Lavi's incredibly melodramatic wails of defeat. He did _not_ appreciate it when Lenalee cautioned him to watch his step when they approached a curb he would otherwise have tripped flat on his face over. He was _not_ becoming playfully competitive when Lenalee won the next hole. He was _not_ enjoying this. Not at all.

It was about when Lavi passed a decorative distorting mirror and cried in distress at the sight of his "sexilicious face being ruined" that Allen basically thought _fuck it._

Allen snickered at the way Lavi lamented in grief when Lenalee won the first game. He was admittedly a little irked to have lost as well, but it was worth it to see Lavi so distraught to have lost to the petite female. At least Allen had been somewhat near to her in second place. Lavi wasn't even _close._ For all his boasting and determined promises to come out on top, the redhead was actually pretty terrible at mini golf. He always hit too hard, although that was to be expected if his rambunctious personality was anything to go by. Still, Allen had to wonder if Lavi even understood the difference between mini golf and regular golf. Judging by the number of times the older male had had to retrieve his neon pink (Lavi claimed the color built character) ball from the depths of one decorative display or another, Allen guessed that the line was very thin. As the group approached the stand outside to buy another round of admittance, they were greeted by their fourth companion. Note, the word "greet" was used rather loosely.

"You fuckwads! You fucking started without me!" came the pissed shout of Allen's least favorite member of the terrible trio. Kanda's face was scrunched up red in anger as he briskly approached the other three. Allen couldn't help the slight grin of satisfaction that tugged at his lips at the sight of the Japanese male's irked demeanor. When had he become so sadistic?

Lenalee regarded Kanda's anger rather nonchalantly, shrugging indifferently. "You're the one who refused to leave your little play-fight boyscout troop early to join us when we told you to." Allen checked the time. It was only 12:35. Didn't Lavi say Kanda's class got out at 12? He _must_ have left early, unless... he was somehow even more of a lunatic behind the wheel than Lavi...

Allen made a mental note _never_ to get into a car with Kanda driving.

"It's not 'play-fighting', it's fucking kendo!"

"Doesn't really make a difference, does it?" Kanda dropped the argument at that. It only took a few moments for the long haired man to find a new subject to fight about, though.

Kanda turned to Allen with an icy glare as he bit out, "You invited the fucking _moyashi_ again?"

Allen could already feel his temples throbbing in irritation. _Aaand_ just like that, he was reminded all over again just how much he hated this prick. "I looked up what that word means on Google Translate! Where do you get off calling me 'sprout,' you ass?" Allen shot at the pissy source of his frustration, he eyes meeting with the dark ones in a heated glare. Why did it suddenly feel like there was electricity in the air?

"Actually, it means 'bean sprout,' to be more specific," Lenalee interjected ebulliently. "I looked it up on Word Reference. It's _way_ better than Google Translate."

"'Bean sprout'? The fuck is _that_ supposed to mean?" Allen questioned with a raised eyebrow. Kanda smirked.

"You're short, white, and scrawny. You _are_ a bean sprout."

"That's it! Drag queen's gonna die!"

But just as it had the day prior, the potential fist fight was quickly broken up, this time by Lavi who jumped in between the two with a shout of, "No fighting! I have a game to win!" The irony of those words was so thick, Allen was sure he could cut it with a knife. Because of this, he and Kanda both raised eyebrows at each other in silent agreement before stepping away from each other in temporary truce. It seemed that both males got a kick out of watching Lavi fail miserably.

After a brief squabble resulting from Kanda demanding _he_ get to be the blue ball (consequently changing Allen's color to white since Lenalee had already claimed the green, thus leaving only purple and orange as his other options), the four quickly got into a competitive groove. As she proved to be the most patient of the group, Lenalee was doing best score-wise, but Allen and Kanda weren't far behind her. This led to a furious struggle for second place between the two, as both males were pretty neck-and-neck in their rankings. Allen had to admit, he was impressed by how good Kanda was. He'd expected the rude man to fair similar results to Lavi due to his seemingly endless rage, but the jerk was surprisingly calculated and precise in his putting. Allen guessed that kendo had a lot to do with this fact. Lavi, of course, was still in last place by a lot. Not that that put an end to the redhead's determination, though, as he _still_ boasted that he was going to beat his companions without a doubt. The amused glances Allen and Kanda occasionally shot at each other as a result was probably the only thing keeping their competition civil.

However, when Lavi tried to switch Kanda's ball with his own while the Japanese man wasn't looking, all hell broke loose. Lenalee unsuccessfully tried to dissolve the conflict when Kanda pinned Lavi to a glowing elephant by the neck, but the long-haired male was having none of her diplomacy. Apparently he was even more competitive than Lavi. Lenalee's shrieks only got louder when everyone in a fifty foot radius began to stare at the violently cursing man pinning his choking friend to an elephant, some more concerned than others. Allen, for one, found the display incredibly amusing and simply watched from the sidelines as his three acquaintances bickered it out. That is, until Lavi desperately shouted, "Allen told me to do it!" with a pointed finger of accusation and an apologetic stare toward the whitette. Kanda's brain must have been even smaller than Allen had thought because he fed right into Lavi's lie and immediately whirled around to glare at the shorter male maliciously. Allen gulped.

 _Shit._

It didn't take long before Allen was forced to break into a full-on sprint to avoid the fists of the violently seething Kanda. Judging by the strangled cries in short vicinity behind him, Lavi had also been caught in the whirlwind of the chase. Somewhere in the distance, Lenalee shrieked at them to settle down—something about not wanting to get kicked out was all Allen caught—but it became apparent pretty quickly that Kanda's manhunt wasn't ending any time soon.

Allen weaved expertly around cutouts of juggling clowns and men swallowing swords, having had more than enough experience running from his life as a result of Cross's debt collectors to avoid such measly obstacles, but despite the sounds of crashing and the shrill shriek of " _SHIT!_ " that sounded behind him as Lavi tripped over one decoration after another, the redhead's longer legs allowed him to catch up to Allen without too much difficulty. The whitette just hoped that the _other_ tall member of their group wouldn't fair so easily.

As if reading Allen's mind, Lavi panted, "He's gonna catch up with us soon! Th' crazy fucker's agile as a fuckin' gazelle due to all that kendo training!" Shit. Allen glared at the redhead out the corner of his eye.

"I fucking hate you, you know that, right?"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Chastise my brilliant plan—" _Throwing Allen to the wolves was his "brilliant plan"?!_ "—later! Right now we gotta hide!"

Allen raised an eyebrow. "Where?"

"This way!" Ignoring Allen's shout of complaint, Lavi grabbed his hand and began to drag him off to the right somewhere. The whitette decided that he was going to give Lavi a good long chat about personal space when this was all over. Soon the two were approaching a bright rectangle of light, and Allen wondered briefly if perhaps Kanda had already caught and killed him before Lavi dragged him through what was apparently a doorway out of the building. Oh. So it was the Exit. The run didn't end there, though. Lavi continued pulling Allen along and pushed past the line of angrily shouting people before slamming some cash on the ticket booth and wheezing, "Two for the mirror maze please! Keep the change!" to the frightened boy behind the counter, who shakily slid two passes to the redhead without a word. Lavi wasted no time bounding toward the maze entrance and dragged Allen a good way into the labyrinth of mirrors (much to the displeasure of the latter, who got slammed into more than enough glass to account for the bruises he'd surely find all over his body later) before at last dropping his hand and collapsing on the ground in a fit of gasping breaths. "We should be safe here for now," he stage whispered to Allen between pants.

Allen took several long moments to catch his own breath before staring at his forced upon partner in crime incredulously. "Are you insane?" he asked in a tone somewhere between rage and shock.

Lavi brought a finger to his lips, eye wide. "Shh! If he comes in here, he'll find us if you're loud!" Allen doubted that. Music was blaring rather intensely over the speakers in the maze. Was that Darude's "Sandstorm"?

"I can't believe I let you drag me into this mess," Allen huffed, his breathing more or less starting to slow down. This shit was exactly why he hated going on "adventures" with these people. One second, everything seemed fine, and the next, he was running for his life in a public place. Why did this crap always happen to him?

"Hey, you should be thanking me!" Lavi retorted indignantly. "If it weren't for me, you'd be skinned alive by now!"

" _And whose fault would that be?_ " Allen bit back, rolling his eyes. Lavi seemed ready to argue but ultimately snapped his mouth shut.

After both men had caught their breaths and about two additional runs of Sandstorm—apparently it was on loop in the mirror maze—after that, Allen spoke up again. "So how long do we have to hide here?"

Lavi grinned at him somewhat sheepishly. "'Could be anywhere from zero seconds to two hours. I've had to hide out for twelve hours before, actually, but this wasn't too bad of an offense so Yuu should calm down rather quickly." Allen wondered what had warranted the twelve hours but decided not to ask.

"Great," Allen muttered under his breath as he slid down the mirror behind him to sit beside Lavi. "Trapped in a mirror maze with an annoying idiot by his even more annoying sociopath of a friend with Darude's Sandstorm playing on loop. Bloody _fantastic_."

Rather than take mind to Allen's anger—not that the latter male really expected him to—Lavi just grinned. "There's worst ways to get trapped by murderous she-males. Last Saturday, I pranked him by stuffing his katana sheathe full of ketchup. Got stuck in an air vent for _six hours_."

Allen wanted to question the death wish Lavi apparently had but instead found himself snorting at the mental image of Kanda covered in the tomato-based condiment. Something about the angry Japanese man being covered in red liquid seemed oddly fitting. Allen chose not to ponder why. "So this whole 'run-and-hide-for-dear-life' thing is a pretty common occurrence for you, huh?"

Lavi laughed. "Pretty much. 'S a miracle I haven't lost my head yet, heh. But hey! All that running has done _wonders_ for my figure. Where d'ya think I got these _sexilicious calves_ from?" Lavi raised a tan leg and hiked up the bottom of his shorts to emphasize this point. Allen had to admit, the redhead was pretty damn toned. He snorted nonetheless.

"I don't know. Maybe from all the walking you do _stalking people at Kroger?_ " Lavi's smug grin was wiped off his face in an instant.

"You're _still_ salty about that? C'mon, it's been like, _two days_ since then! That's, like, forever ago!"

Allen rolled his eyes. "You're right, how silly of me. I should be saltier about how you literally _kidnapped me_ two hours ago."

Lavi scoffed. "Oh, please, you're having fun!"

"What part of being chased down by a sociopathic drag queen is _fun?_ "

Lavi huffed a dramatic sigh. "Christ, you're impossible to please. You should really go see a doctor about that stick up your ass."

" _This is the eighth time you've almost killed me!_ "

"What? _Puh-lease_ , I've only almost killed you three times, tops!" Lavi claimed with a roll of his eyes.

Allen stared at him blankly. "One, when you bowled me over at The Pretzel Cafe and nearly gave me a concussion. Two, when you bear tackled me into a wall of deodorant sticks at Kroger. Three, when you tried to freaking ninja me across Mellow Mushroom. Four, when you impromptu kidnapped me this morning. Five, when you lied to _Asswipe McGhee_ to try and save your own skin and consequently got us both stuck hiding in the middle of a mirror maze."

Lavi was silent for a moment before he perked up again in protest. "Wait, that's still only five times!"

"The rest are all the times you've almost killed me with your madman diving."

" _Those don't count!_ "

"Psycho, say 'What?'"

"What?"

"See, you're crazy!" This made Lavi finally go silent, much to Allen's comeback-ready surprise. Apparently pranks were the redhead's weak point. Allen made a mental note of that.

After several long minutes of Darude's Sandstorm-filled quiet—if it could even be called that—Allen peered at Lavi (who was _still_ pouting) and spoke again. "So, a mirror maze. Interesting hiding place."

Lavi grinned brightly once more and leaned back against the mirrored wall. "Oho, so you've noticed my stroke of genius at last! It was only a matter of time, really, before you realized my greatness and fell in awe at the illustrious radiance of my being! But fear not, fair maiden—" Allen let out a short cry of 'Hey!' at being dubbed 'maiden,' which Lavi promptly ignored—"I, the Great Lavi, shan't deprive you of the grandness that is my friendship!"

Allen stared at him blankly. "We are _not_ friends. How many times do I have to reiterate that?"

"Please," Lavi huffed, rolling his eyes, "You like me and you know it. Why else would you play mini golf with us?"

" _YOU KIDNAPPED ME!_ "

"Besides," Lavi continued with another brilliantly charming grin (though Allen would rather die than admit to the latter adjective), "even if you continue to be stubborn, you'll have to give in eventually. After all, it's only a matter of time before you succumb to my—" He wiggled his eyebrows. "—a- _maze_ -ingness!"

Allen just stared at the older man for a moment in confusion before the joke registered in his brain, causing him to let out a long groan of pain. "Oh my god, you're doing _puns_ now?"

Lavi's grin only widened. "What can I say? I'm—" He winked (Or maybe blinked. It was kind of hard to tell). "— _pun_ in a million."

Allen decided that he was only going to be able to survive about three more of these horrible jokes before he completely lost it. He stood. "Okay, yeah, no. I can't take this anymore. Let's get out of this stupid maze."

Lavi jumped to his feet as well, a false pout on his face. "Awe, what? You don't think my humor has any _glass?_ " Allen didn't even dignify that with a response and just walked around the nearest unfamiliar corner. Lavi followed close behind.

Looking back on it, letting the boy with possibly the _worst_ sense of direction on the entire planet lead them through a _labyrinth of mirrors_ was probably a significant lapse in judgment.

Lavi seemed indifferent to the situation, watching Allen with his arms cradled behind his head in an easygoing manner and a grin on his face as the whitette looked frantically left and right, trying to find the correct direction. Hadn't they just been here? Allen could've sworn he'd seen this section of carpet before. But then again, all the carpet looked exactly the same. Fuck.

"Y'know," Lavi piped up, laidback humor present in his voice, "you're just gonna get us more lost if you don't go the _right_ direction." It took a moment for Allen to register this as a pun and another to figure out that Lavi was giving him directions before he begrudgingly turned to the right. Of course, this only led to another fork in the path. "Wow, I get that you want to _split_ , but this is getting seriously ridiculous."

Allen turned to glare at the redhead. "Will you stop making those stupid puns? I'm trying to get us out of here!"

"With your sense of direction, you've really _left_ me with no other option." Allen growled in frustration and turned left. He walked around several more corners, a bit irked because he was _painfully aware_ of the silent amusement ebbing from his companion. The whitette allowed himself a few more confusion-evoking attempts at guiding them before looking up at Lavi once more.

"Do you know how the hell to get out of here?"

Lavi just looked even more amused. "What pointed you in that _direction_ , li'l bud?"

Allen chose to ignore the mocking pun. "Because you seem to find this situation _awfully hilarious_ , Bookman," he bit out coldly.

Lavi smirked and gestured to the many mirrored reflections of the two boys around them. "Nah, I can _see_ that we're in a rather puzzling predicament."

Allen threw his head back and groaned once more. "Lavi, this is serious! I don't know how to get us out of here!"

"That's fine with me! You and I can make up for _lost_ time," Lavi chuckled. Allen wanted to scream.

"Christ, and I thought just _sitting_ there with you was unbearable," the shorter boy muttered. "At least before this, my legs didn't hurt."

"Yeah, _reflecting_ back on it, this whole escaping thing was a terrible idea."

"Lavi, I will harm you."

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," the redhead chastised playfully before posing in a mock imitation of a roar. "I'm a lion. You could make _mirror_ rather loudly!"

"Oh, come on, _that one wasn't even good!_ "

"Well shit. I guess I'm out of jokes. We've surely come—"

" _Lavi._ "

"—u _pun_ a problem."

"OH MY FUCKING GOD, _I AM GOING TO MURDER YOU!_ "

"Awe, c'mon, Allen!" Lavi was laughing at this point. "What's Lena gonna say when I can't walk for _maze?_ "

" _AUGH!_ "

Apparently this _particular_ cry of agonized distress alerted Lavi to his possible incoming homicidal death because he finally stopped. The two men walked side by side in silence for several minutes, this time with Lavi leading in terms of where to turn, but after countless corners and reruns of fucking _Darude's Sandstorm_ , Lavi finally stopped and turned to his shorter companion. Allen raised an eyebrow at the taller man's sheepish grin. That look was never good.

"Hey, Allen?"

"Yeah...?" the younger boy replied uneasily.

"How do we get out of here?"

Sometimes Allen really wanted to kill Lavi.

However, after a few more desperate twists and turns, Allen simply brought his hands up to his face in distress. "Oh my god. I am going to die here."

Lavi patted his shoulder comfortingly, though Allen could tell the redhead was just as uneasy as he was. "N-Now, cheer up, li'l bud! I'm sure we can figure this out!" he assured with a nervous smile. Allen just let out a sound somewhere between a sob and a groan and slumped down to a sitting position against the nearest mirror.

"I never thought I'd die like this. I was certain my death would be at the hands of Cross on a boat somewhere off the coast of Uruguay. Where did I go wrong to deserve _this_ fall?" Allen muttered gloomily.

Lavi came to sit against the mirror beside him and sighed. "I feel you there, buddy. I thought for _sure_ that I'd die heroically fighting the Hydra in Greece. This defeat is just embarrassing."

Allen stared at the redhead. "What the _fuck_ , Lavi?"

Lavi raised an eyebrow. "What? You don't consider death by mirror maze a pathetic way to go?"

"That's not the part I—"

Suddenly, a loud shattering sound echoed somewhere in the maze, bringing both boys to a silent halt. If he listened very closely, Allen could just barely make out the sound of footsteps over the music and frowned. Oddly enough, the mirror maze had been empty save for him and Lavi the entire duration of their hideout. He dreaded to think of what footsteps could mean.

"Lavi... What was that?" he whispered a little bit shakily to his companion.

The older male had a look of intense concentration on his face as he listened to the sounds before speaking up rather casually. "Well, my dear Allen, judging by the dangling sounds of emo wallet chains and the long string of PMS-fueled profanity being faintly muttered, I'd say Yuu has figured out where we are." Lavi apparently had much better hearing than Allen did. Well, either that or he could just tune out the music better. Given how often the redhead blatantly ignored any and all criticism to his obnoxious behavior, Allen wouldn't exactly be surprised if the latter was the case.

"Ah," the whitette returned monotonously. "So we're going to die by _Kanda_ in a mirror maze."

"It seems so."

"Lavi?"

"Yeah, Allen?"

"I fucking hate you."

"That's fair."

"I take it we should probably run now?"

"Yeah, most likely."

And so gave way to yet another chase as Allen and Lavi promptly started sprinting for their lives _once again_. Seriously, Allen was going to have a fuckin' ballet dancer's thighs at this rate. How did he keep getting into these messes? Oh yeah. _He_ didn't.

He _really_ hated Lavi sometimes.

But just as they hadn't before, neither male had even the slightest idea of where they were going. If this lack of direction hadn't been stressful before, _it sure as hell was now_. The looping of Sandstorm didn't help much for the intensity of the situation, and the footsteps were getting _incredibly_ loud. Somewhere in the back of Allen's adrenaline-hazy mind, it occurred to him that the booming "steps" were actually his heart pounding in his ears, but that didn't really ease the tension of the situation. The twists and turns were starting to blur together, and a brand new feeling of claustrophobia started to worm its way into Allen's body until he was panicking about way more than just his imminent doom. Lavi wasn't fairing much better, either. Allen could hear vague sobs and the occasional yelp beside him as the redhead clumsily crashed into mirrors at the edges of his focus, but said focus was hardly that because it felt like the world was _spinning!_ His and Lavi's faces reflected infinitely around them, swirling in Allen's head like a vortex of melodramatic screaming courtesy of his companion until he felt so dizzy, he had to grab onto said male's arm to steady himself. Lavi, however, seemed to take this a different way and promptly pulled Allen into a bone-crushing hug that, in his stupor, the younger returned rather than protested.

"Allen, we're gonna diiiiieeeeee!" sobbed the redhead over everything, and Allen's throat began humming in such a way that made him realize he was wailing as well. The two were clumsy, clinging onto each other desperately as they ran around like chickens with their heads cut off. Allen couldn't believe this was how he was gonna die, in the loving arms of this guy he didn't even _like_ , though that particular description wasn't as prominent in Allen's brain as the comfort he was now admittedly seeking from the older male. He looked up at the redhead through tear-blurry eyes.

"L-Lavi," he whimpered, too far gone to feel any shame in the tone of voice. "I'm scared."

Lavi looked down at him, sniffing back the watering of his own eye. "Me, too, li'l buddy. Me, too." Allen hiccuped unattractively, but the noise was apparently endearing as Lavi then continued with newfound strength, "It's okay, Allen. I'll protect you. I swear on my honor, I will not let Yuu slice and dice you like a spaghetti squash."

Allen felt like there were stars in his glittering grey eyes as he looked up at Lavi hopefully. "L-Lavi..." he murmured in awe through rose-colored panic. "I—"

He didn't get to finish his sentence, however, as both males promptly stumbled out of a black curtain into the light of day, tangled up in a mess of sobbing limbs before the dumbstruck eyes of Lenalee. And everyone else in a fifty foot radius.

"Wow, guys..." Lenalee started with a small hint of sarcasm as well as suppressed giggles. "Sure got, uh... _friendly_ with each other."

Whatever drunken stupor Allen had been in a moment before sobered up immediately as he furiously untangled his limbs from Lavi's and wiped the remaining tears and sweat off his face. He could feel his cheeks burning hotter and hotter with each passing second and hoped gravely that it wasn't as noticeable to the spectators as it was to him, though judging by the knowing look on Lenalee's face, it _very much was_. He wanted to say something, anything! _Anything_ to dissolve the misunderstanding, _anything_ to defend his case, _anything_ to wipe that smug smirk from the surprisingly sadistic female's face. But Lavi beat him to it.

"Save the gay accusations for later, Lena!" the redhead shouted in panic. "Yuu's right behind us!"

This time, Lenalee raised an eyebrow at the man in confusion. "What? He's over there," she said, pointing past both of them to the wall of the circus golf building where, surely enough, the violent Japanese man was leaning, eyes closed in casual silence.

Allen and Lavi both stared dumbfoundedly at Kanda, the same question clearly running through each of their minds. How was he out here? "But... Footsteps... Glass breaking..." Allen stuttered intelligently. Lenalee raised another eyebrow.

"Glass breaking—?" she murmured confusedly before something seemed to click and she whirled around to shout at Kanda. "Oh my god, Kanda, _you broke a mirror?!_ FOR FUCK'S SAKE, YOU WERE ONLY IN THERE FOR _TWENTY SECONDS!"_ Kanda just shrugged. Lavi and Allen paused.

 _… Wait, what?_

Both perplexed men stared at Lenalee for several seconds before Lavi spoke up. "Wait... So... He only _entered_ the maze, broke a mirror, and then walked back out...?" Lenalee nodded in confirmation, and another few moments of silence passed before realization dawned on both of them like a sack of bricks to the face.

They'd been pranked.

Through the display of Lavi screaming and flailing in anguish at having fallen for this as well as Lenalee simultaneously laughing at their expense and screaming at Lavi to stop making a scene ( _as if they hadn't made enough of a scene already_ ), Allen could faintly make out a sadistically smug smirk on Kanda's face.

 _That sly fucking bastard._

* * *

"Tim, I'm home!" Allen called out as he stepped into his apartment and hooked his keys on the ring. Said golden cat looked up at the boy from his position on the couch and regarded him indifferently. Allen took it as a greeting and chuckled before sitting down next to the feline. Timcanpy seemed to appreciate the pets that followed, at least.

Allen threw back his head and sighed. _That_ had been an interesting day, to say the least. By the time Lavi had finally calmed down (or, well, gone back to his _normal_ level of hyperactive energy), Allen had for the most part gotten over being publicly humiliated by his least favorite member of the terrible trio, though he still seethed slightly as Lenalee suggested they play another few rounds of mini golf. By the time they'd finished (Lenalee had won, of course), it'd already started to get dark out, so after stopping at McDonald's to pick up a victory milkshake for Lenalee, the three had dropped Allen off by his car and headed home.

Yet despite how much he assured himself he was nothing but relieved to be back home in his comfortably familiar dwelling with nothing but his internal musings and Timcanpy, Allen was, for lack of a better word, _conflicted._ Not that confusion hadn't become the norm for him after the wild chain of events that week, but this was a different kind of mental struggle. At least before now, the troubles had been him versus Fou, him versus Tumblr fame, him versus Rabi, him versus Lavi and his lunatic friends, but now... Well, he was kind of at war with himself.

Allen wanted to smack himself for phrasing it like _that_. That made it sound a lot more angsty than it really was.

Honestly, the problem broke down simply to part of him hating Lavi and his friends and part of him enjoying their company. That was it. His mind just seemed to be weighing the pros and cons of befriending them at this point, whether he consciously wanted to or not. On the pros side, there was the fact that being taken out to all these interesting places was, arguably, _really_ fun. There was the fact that Lavi's antics were kind of hilarious, albeit annoying. There was the fact that Lenalee was actually pretty pleasant when she wasn't scolding them for destroying public property. Allen had to admit, it was kind of nice.

However, on the cons side, there was a pretty long list of ordeals.

Allen had been tackled into near-concussion twice. He'd been stalked. He'd been dragged along like a rag doll. He'd been kidnapped. He'd been chased for his life and had consequently almost gotten stuck in a mirror maze for _god knows how long_. The list of injuries he'd gotten around Lavi was ever-growing, and he'd almost gotten into two destructive fist fights with Kanda already. Lavi's jokes were god-awful, and he'd nearly gotten banned from three public places. And this was all in only _four days_ of knowing these people!

 _Why was he even debating this?!_ Allen couldn't become friends with these lunatics! _He'd literally die!_

With this excuse prominent in his mind suffocating the good points, Allen nodded to himself assuredly. He would not befriend Lavi and his friends. He'd find some way to avoid them, some way to get out of any future hazards to his health. He would _not_ let them wedge their way into his life again! Something about this assurance was incredibly comforting to Allen. Right. He didn't need those people. He didn't need friends like that. He had enough friends already. There was Fou, of course, and _Rabi!_ Why would Allen need Lavi when he had Rabi? It all felt perfectly logical to him.

… And _yet_...

Allen shook his head once more. No, he wouldn't think about this anymore. He'd come to his conclusion. The white-haired boy pulled his phone from his pocket and prepared to send a DM to Rabi, biting the inside of his cheek. He had Internet friends. He had Tumblr fame.

He didn't need more than this.

* * *

 **Shaberu-chan: AND ENDING ON AN ANGSTY NOTE, WHOO~! Originally, this chapter got, like, REALLY dramatic in the mirror maze. The angst was seriously real, fam. BUUUUT although the drama was necessary and WILL be making an appearance in the next chapter, I decided that dropping it right smack in the middle of this one was rushing it. SO, I replaced it with 2k or so words of bad puns and pranking and just sprinkled a little bit of drama in there at the end. Perfect~! ^.^ So how many of you caught the multitude of Undertale references in this chapter? XD I've become total trash for that game, which is part of the reason why this chappy took so long. AHEM, speaking of, I AM SO SORRY FOR TAKING TWO FRIGGIN MONTHS TO UPDATE Q~Q The WB hit me hardcore, and then I went through a series of fandom-related writing problems as well as business. In February, I went through a HUGE NaruGaa Naruto phase, so I was out of commission with those fics for a solid three weeks. Then I was busy for two weeks because my school's musical was a few weeks ago and I was doing costuming shiz backstage for it. THEN I had to get my grades up before Spring Break and NOW I'm on my second week of said break about ready to die. Like I said, Undertale has taken over my life. The fanfics, however, have destroyed my mental purity wITH THEIR UNRELENTING KINKS. I've been an emotional mess since break started and I've only left my house three times in the past 13 days. I need help. Call life alert. ANYWAY, because I read a PARTICULARLY innocence-soiling fanfic a few days ago the likes of which I am STILL trying desperately to forget, I decided to dedicate a few days to writing! :D This chapter took a slightly different turn than I expected it to, but eh it's fine. This story has gone on for, what, 35k words now? A lot of stories would be FINISHED by now, but** _ **no**_ **, I waste way too much page time on unimportant details and rambling. Fml. OKAY, boys, anything to say?  
** **Allen: What the fuck just happened?  
** **Lavi: hOW DID I FALL FOR THAT PRANK?  
** **Shaberu-chan: … Idek fam. Crack. Anyway, thanks to Kittenanimegirl13 (Thanks QwQ), Deugemia (I'm glad you think so and I hope you enjoyed the puns X'D), Guest (TRYIN' BAE -heart-), Usagi-Twins (I love making them shit talk themselves XD The irony of all of this fuels me), Vongolatte (Tbh I mostly imagine they're not figuring it out bc of statistics. Realistically speaking, if you meet a random waiter and comment on some random text post on tumblr on the same day, what are the odds that the same person is responsible? Especially if one is being a total prick to you and the other is super chill and open X'D), Witch Mabaa (IT'S OK TO LAUGH ALLEN CANNOT JUDGE YOUR SINS ((Allen: WHAT YES I CA-)) You get a gold member card to the filthy sinners club, composed of me and three of my friends who are all Undertrash. Enjoy XD), raven1214 (You're a dear~ -heart-), TheGreatMasterHide (I'm so glad you like it QwQ I'm not dead, I swear!), Amelia Loves Anime (*shrieks* THANKYOUSOMUCH *faints*), and Piggypig213 (THERE IS NO SLEEP IT IS 2:14AM HERE RN AND I AM WIRED I AM THE NIIIIIGHT *gives you invite to the Bat Cave and disappears into the shadows*) for reviewing as well to everyone who favorited/followed! HOLY FUCK we are past 50 follows, guys! O.O That's the most I've ever gotten on a story! You people give me life (/)/(\\) ALSO oh my god guys someone recommended this story on Tumblr! My Queerplatonic Bae, Candy, showed me that an anon recommended this fic to someone. WHOEVER YOU ARE, MYSTERY ANON, THANK YOU SO MUCH THAT SERIOUSLY MADE MY MONTH! ;u; AH ok this A/N is way too long! I'm so sorry! DX UNTIL NEXT TIME~! *confetti rains from the sky***


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